Professor Lawrence Wetherhold ( Dennis Quaid ) might be imperiously brilliant, monumentally self–possessed and an intellectual giant – but when it comes to solving the conundrums of love and family, he‘s as downright flummoxed as the next guy. His teenaged daughter ( Ellen Page ) is an acid–tongued overachiever who follows all too closely in dad‘s misery–loving footsteps, and his adopted, preposterously ne‘er–do–well brother ( Thomas Haden Church ) has perfected the art of freeloading. A widower who can‘t seem to find passion in anything anymore, not even the Victorian Literature in which he‘s an expert, it seems Lawrence is sleepwalking through a very stunted middle age. When his brother shows up unexpectedly for an extended stay at just about the same time as he accidentally encounters his former student Janet ( Sarah Jessica Parker ), the circumstances cause him to stir from his deep, deep freeze, with often comical, sometimes heartbreaking, consequences for himself and everyone around him.