Summary

At the age of sixteen, Miranda (Evan Rachel Wood) has already had to live with her share of disappointments. Abandoned by her mother, she's dropped out of school and has been supporting herself as an employee at McDonald's while her father Charlie (Michael Douglas) resides in a mental institution. When Charlie is released and sent back to their home, Miranda finds the relatively peaceful existence she's built for herself completely disrupted. Charlie has become obsessed with the notion that the long-lost treasure of Spanish explorer Father Juan Florismarte Garces is buried somewhere near their suburban California housing unit. Armed with a metal detector and a stack of treasure-hunting books, Charlie soon finds reason to believe that the gold resides underneath the local Costco, and encourages Miranda to get a job there so that they can plan a way to excavate after hours. Initially skeptical, Miranda soon finds herself joining in Charlie's questionable antics in an effort to give him one last shot at accomplishing his dreams in this darkly funny, exciting and surprisingly hopeful take on the modern family and the American dream. Writer/director Mike Cahill's film is the story of a teenage girl who has essentially raised her mentally-ill father, and her attempts at supporting his most questionable plan yet: locating 18th century gold that he believes is buried beneath their Southern California suburb. Miranda (Evan Rachel Wood) has more than a few reasons to be cynical: her mother abandoned her, she's been forced to quit school and work at McDonald's to support herself, and Charlie, her father (Michael Douglas), has just returned home after two years in a mental institution. But as Miranda begins to see the possibilities in Charlie's deluded treasure hunt, she also begins to realize that what he's attempting is a last-ditch effort to make something of himself and for his daughter in a world that seems to be constantly disappointing them.