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Colin Hanks stars as Shaun, a carefree California surfer dude who loses a friend to a tsunami. Shaun is contemplating his life when he finds a brilliant novel buried in the sand. He reads it and decides to become a writer himself, and study with the author, who teaches at Stanford. He's eager to leave Orange County, where he lives with his clingy alcoholic mother (Catherine O'Hara) and his burnout brother Lance (Jack Black). When Shaun's guidance counselor (Lily Tomlin) sends the wrong transcript to Stanford, Shaun needs all the help he can get from his seemingly hopeless family to salvage his dream. (official distributor synopsis)

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