Chris Gardner is an intelligent, energetic guy who can't catch a break. In the sluggish Bay Area economy of 1981, he's losing ground, by investing all his family's money in high cost bone-density scanners. His wife leaves him, he loses his apartment, and with his 5-year-old son in tow joins the ranks of the homeless, if not the hopeless. Bounced from shelter to shelter, he finds himself a single dad who has to support and care for a young child. Impressing...

After receiving a sweepstakes letter in the mail, a cantankerous father thinks he's struck it rich, and wrangles his estranged son into taking a road trip to claim the fortune. Getting waylaid in the father's hometown in Nebraska, the son tries to reconnect with his impenetrable father.