Plot summary

Small-town New Providence, New Jersey attorney Mike Flaherty (Paul Giamatti) moonlights as a wrestling coach and struggles to keep his practice solvent, while shielding his wife, Jackie (Amy Ryan), and their two young daughters, Abby and Stella, from the extent of the problem. When his court-appointed client Leo Poplar (Burt Young), who is suffering from early dementia, turns out to have no locatable relatives, Flaherty persuades a judge to appoint him as guardian, for which he will receive a stipend of $1500/month.When Poplar's troubled teenage grandson Kyle (Alex Shaffer) shows up from Ohio looking to live with him, Mike and Jackie let him stay with them, as Mike has moved Leo to a senior care facility. Kyle tries to break into Leo's old house, and when Mike and Jackie question him about it, he reveals his troubled family life. His mom is in rehab, she lives with her boyfriend, and he doesn't want to go back. After Kyle sits in on wrestling practice, they discover that he is a talented wrestler, and enroll him at Mike's high school, where he can resume his education and wrestle on Mike's losing team, helping to make them viable contenders in their league.This win-win setup is disrupted when Kyle's mother Cindy (Melanie Lynskey) shows up fresh out of rehab and attempts to gain custody of her father and her son, and with them her father's substantial estate. When Kyle learns that Mike had originally promised to keep Leo in his home but has instead moved him to a nursing home, the boy rejects Mike as a money-grubbing opportunist no better than his mother. Realizing the mistake of his earlier actions, and seeking instead to do what's best for both Leo and Kyle, Mike offers Cindy his monthly stipend in exchange for leaving her son and father in his care. He and Jackie take Kyle into their home permanently and return Leo to his, with Mike instead taking a bartending job to address his financial problems.