It's a current-day mystery with ironic and humorous edges set in rural West Texas. It follows an elitist writer/podcaster from the New Yorker magazine who looks into the overdose death of a woman he hooked up with a few times.
Ben Manalowitz (B. J. Novak) is A New Yorker writer and aspiring podcaster who lives the life of hooking up at bars multiple times a week and engages in empty intellectual banter with friends. One night he gets a distraught call from Ty Shaw (Boyd Holbrook) from West Texas, saying that his girlfriend, Abilene (Lio Tipton), has died. Ben remembers hooking up with her a few times and finally agrees to come to her funeral since the family believes it was a close relationship.
The film follows his interaction with the family when he learns they all believe that Abilene's overdose death was not accidental. Ben stays with the family, feeling the family seeks a kind of vengeance by believing in a murder myth. We meet the Shaw family, which includes Ty's two remaining sisters, a younger brother, Mother Sharon (J. Smith-Cameron), and Granny (Louanne Stephens). Initially, he writes them off as rural rubes but comes to understand things are more complex than he first imagined. He also meets a music producer, Quinten Sellers (Ashton Kutcher), who spouts theories on life's meaning that intrigue Ben.
Ben interviews the drug dealer, the family suspects, and the four law enforcement agencies that had jurisdiction in where Abilene's body was found. A couple of abrupt plot twists at the movie's end influence the podcast, Ben's self-understanding, and shift the film's concept of vengeance.
I was very taken by the film. The characters that initially seem one-dimensional become more complex as the story unfolds. I didn't see the ending coming. B. J. Novak was excellent as the smug Eastern snob who learns a lot about himself. I thought there were some false notes with Ashton Kutcher's character, but overall I thought the storyline worked.
