Rocker Ethan Brand (Alessandro Nivola) and his band are on the comeback trail when a former flame (Academy Award® nominee Elisabeth Shue) drops a bomb in his lap: their 13-year-old daughter, Janie Jones (Academy Award® nominee Abigail Breslin).
Ethan refuses to believe Janie is his kid, but when her mom suddenly leaves for rehab, the child has no place to go but into the tour bus and on the road with the band. With no feel for fatherhood, Ethan continues his hard-living ways, giving Janie a crash course of the not-so-glamorous life on the road.
As Ethan’s self-destructive spiral threatens the groups future, his band members desert him one by one, until he and Janie are left alone. Desperate to finish the tour and revive his career, Ethan stays on the road as a solo act with Janie in tow, where her surprising musical talents help guide him down the rocky road to redemption.
Nivola and Breslin naturally embrace their musical characters—both actually sing and perform in the film—while developing Ethan and Janie's relationship in a refined way to delicately express the emotional needs of the characters. Writer/director David M. Rosenthal, who was inspired by his own experiences, blends the musical setting with road trip movie elements that add subtle layers to the dynamic of his two main characters.
DAVID M. ROSENTHAL is a graduate of the American Film Institute. He earned a master's in poetry from Sarah Lawrence College. His first feature film, See This Movie, premiered at the Aspen Comedy Film Festival and won the Grand Jury prize at the Malibu Film Festival. He also directed the romantic comedy, Falling Up, and his next film is A Single Shot.
