Kyle Howard

Shaun Brumder is an A student and class president at Vista Del Mar High School in Orange County, California. It has always been his desire to go to Stanford. He lives in a nice house with his mom Cindy who married a second time, and although Bob has money, he is now in a wheelchair and heavily medicated so he can hardly function. His loser brother Lance lives with them. At the start of the movie Shaun is narrating. He is actually reading the letter he is sending along with his book "Orange County" to Stanford professor Marcus Skinner, who wrote the book "Straight Jacket" which Shaun found on the beach and read many times. It changed his life and inspired him to become a writer. The audience sees flashbacks of events recalled by Shaun. Although he does very well in school, Shaun has one weakness. When his friends Lonny, Arlo and Chad want to go surfing, he goes with them. It doesn't matter how important other activities are. And on April 15 the group just has to take advantage of these killer waves. Lonny's funeral follows. One morning Lupe is fed up with being bossed around by Shaun's mom, who does little other than drink, and she decides to quit. Shaun persuades her to stay, speaking in Spanish so his mom won't understand. Bob needs his pills. After the audience sees Shaun find the book that changes his life, Shaun sends the letter. Lance, lying on the floor, gets bumped by Shaun opening a door. He asks Shaun to provide him with urine so he will pass a test required by his parole officer. At school, Shaun's girlfriend Ashley tells Principal Harbert that she wants to help save animals affected by an environmental disaster. Time has passed. It is the anniversary of Lonny's death and Shaun and his friends want to do something special. In English class, Mr. Burke announces they will be studying "Romeo and Juliet". Lonny's girlfriend and shallow cheerleader Tanya just can't. She's still grieving. Then class is interrupted by a female student telling Tanya she got into Stanford. Tanya's depression mysteriously disappears. Shaun drops everything and calls Lance on his cell phone. Shaun tells Lance to check the mail, and Shaun rushes home to find a thin envelope. Having been rejected by the one school he applied to, Shaun goes to guidance counselor Ms. Cobb and demands to know what happened. Ms. Cobb doesn't remember that she talked to Shaun earlier or even that Shaun is a student. In a previous scene she said he was definitely getting into Berkeley, and Shaun had to correct her. Ms. Cobb calls up the transcript on her computer and sees Shaun has a 2.5 GPA and a 970 SAT score. Shaun knows this is wrong and looks at the transcript. It is Shane Brainard's. Meanwhile, a clearly inadequate Shane announces to his friends he applied to Stanford as a joke and actually got in. Shaun blames Ms. Cobb for sending the wrong transcript and nearly attacks her. Shaun leaves the building walking right through a group of cheerleaders dancing to "Butterfly" by Crazy Town. What to do? Shaun's father Bud is very rich and he could donate money to Stanford and get Shaun in. He and Ashley drive to Bud's huge mansion on the Pacific Coast Highway where toddler Jake is misbehaving and his mom Krista, wearing a bikini, can't control him so she asks Rosa to. Krista invites Shaun in but his father is yelling at someone on the phone. When Shaun talks to Bud, Bud indicates he won't do anything to help because Shaun is throwing away his life. Bud says even though he fears his health isn't good and he may not have much time left, he will devote all his energy to keeping his business going so he can leave it to Shaun. Meanwhile, Krista is making out with Jorge, and Ashley, who waited in the car, rescues a dog which is about to get run over. Ashley admits she wants Shaun to go to Orange County University with her. She is going to study marine biology there and she is afraid they won't be able to stay together otherwise. There is another way. How could someone like Tanya get in to Stanford? Her grandfather Arthur Gantner is an official there. Ashley tells Tanya what she knows about her. The audience sees flashbacks of Tanya in bed with a guy at a Halloween party and several other incidents Tanya would rather not make public, including one after Lonny's funeral. Soon, Shaun has just minutes to prepare for a home visit from Mr. and Mrs. Gantner. Shaun has to get his mother to change into clothes that make her look presentable, and he tells Lance to stay hidden. The Gantners arrive and Shaun welcomes them, and tells them how much he wants to go to Stanford, and everything Mr. Gantner needs to know in order to accept him. Shaun's mom comes in drinking and volunteering way too much information, including that Bud left her for a 20-year-old and the details of how she ended up with Bob. Some of the details are not appropriate for polite company. Lance comes in wearing only underpants and socks and asks where his urine sample is. Then he realizes the small glass beside Mrs. Gantner must be it. Arlo and Chad come to the door wanting Shaun to come surf, and announces they heard he tried to kill Ms. Cobb. And Bob needs his drugs. Somehow Lance, whose drugs are kept in aspirin and Tylenol bottles, got his drugs and Bob's drugs mixed up and sold Bob's drugs. The rescue dog also causes trouble. The Gantners have had enough and leave, and as Shaun is trying to change their minds, Bob in his wheelchair rolls down the stairs and bumps the car. Mr. Gantner says Shaun will never get into Stanford. What to do now? Lance says Shaun should just go to Stanford and pretend to be a student. And then Lance decides to drive him there in a Ford Bronco. Ashley comes along. Lance is not that good a driver, constantly getting distracted and almost hitting several cars. Bud comes over to his ex's house and admits he misses her and has sometimes driven to her house hoping they will get back together. They end up in bed. By the time the young people arrive at Stanford, it is long past dark, but Mona the receptionist is still in the admissions building. Amazingly, Shaun thinks he can ask to see the dean of admissions. Mona explains that is late and won't even give them information allowing them to talk to the dean at home. After they leave, Lance sneaks in, while Shaun and Ashley figure out they can find the dean's address. Dean Durkett's teenage daughters argue while his wife is busy packing for vacation. Shaun finally persuades Dean Durkett to look at his transcript and while Dean Durkett is impressed, he says it is too late for Shaun to get in. While the dean is out of the room, Ashley discovers she has Lance's aspirin and Tylenol bottles. The dean comes back and sees them and asks for something for his pain. Ashley is unaware of what she is giving the dean, and soon he is high and can be persuaded to do anything. Meanwhile, Lance started taking his clothes off in front of Mona, and after Mona has also taken her clothes off, Mona shows Lance the list of students who were accepted. Lance sets it on fire and throws it in the trash. When the dean, who can barely remember who he is, arrives with Shaun and Ashley, the building is in flames and Lance and Mona are leaving. A firefighter interrogates Lance, who claims he knows nothing and was just walking around the neighborhood. The firefighter soon has enough information to get Lance in trouble and Lance, Shaun and Ashley leave before they get arrested. Shaun and Ashley go their separate ways and Shaun meets Gretchen, who is reading Faulkner, and they have a conversation. Gretchen eventually invites him to a party at Alpha Rho Chi house. She introduces him to some other girls and then the whole group starts dancing to "Butterfly" by Crazy Town. Shaun goes upstairs and can see Ashley talking to Kip, who is good looking and intelligent. He falls off the balcony and he and Ashley get in an argument. Shaun sees Professor Skinner and tells him who he is. Skinner remembers him and says he was impressed by Shaun's book about his life and as they talk, Skinner says he thinks Shaun will be a good writer. Eventually Shaun is able to persuade Ashley to leave with him. With Lance back in the Bronco, they head home. Bud makes a large donation to Stanford for a new admissions building, but Shaun realizes he can stay in Orange County and be a writer. Bud announces he and Cindy will get back together. Shaun narrates the ending, where he buries his copy of Skinner's book on the beach hoping it will help someone else.

Two scientists, Dr. Elena Kinder (Kathleen Turner) and Dr. Heep (Christopher Lloyd), use genius-baby studies to fund BabyCo's theme park "Joyworld". BabyCo is the largest manufacturer of products for the baby and this research would help them understand the needs of babies are lot better. Kinder is also the CEO of BabyCo. According to Dr. Kinder's research on toddlers/babies, babies are born possessing vast, universal knowledge and speak a secret yet impossible-to-translate baby Pre-language called Babytalk. However, at age 2-3, the knowledge and language are lost as the babies "cross over" by learning how to speak human languages. All babies raised in Dr. Kinder's underground research facility were adopted from the orphanages Babyco supports. As they serve to filter out which babies should be raised under the Kinder Method and which babies shouldn't be raised under the Kinder Method. The selected babies are transformed into small geniuses through use of the Kinder Method, and then used in experiments to decipher this secret yet impossible-to-translate language used by the eight baby geniuses. Kinder says that she is spending $200 million every year on the orphanages with the sole purpose of expanding her pool of geniuses. One mischievous toddler, Sylvester (Leo, Gerry and Myles Fitzgerald) the only one of her toddlers raised via use of the superior version of the Kinder Method, nicknamed "Sly", makes repeated attempts to escape Dr. Kinder's research facility. The facility itself is well protected to prevent the smart toddlers from escaping. The facility is 25 stories underground for added protection and secrecy. Sylvester is only afraid of Dr Heep and falls in line as soon as he is confronted by him. Dr Heep had figured out the a baby playing on a musical instrument seems to produce noise, but a computer analysis of the sounds reveals a complex symphony worthy of a Beethoven. Also he finds that children drawing using crayons resemble an ancient language called Cuneiform. Dr Heep concludes that babies use this language and can understand each other. Cracking this secret would be the key to proving the superiority of the Kinder method of child upbringing. Sly's fellow geniuses believe that Kinder is trying to unleash a new world order where the babies would be the leaders, but Sly is not convinced and remains very skeptical of Kinder and her motives. He believes that Heep and Kinder are just wanting their own way to control the world through the babies. One night, Sylvester manages to get into a diaper truck and succeeds in getting out of the facility. The next morning, he is surprised to run into his long-lost normal twin brother, Whit, in a mall where Sly was hiding from Kinder's goons. Sly and Whit were born to a specifically selected surrogate mother and while Sly was taken to the research facility, Kinder arranged for Whit to be adopted by Robin, her niece. For the integrity of the experiment it was imperative that no one discovers that Sly and Whit are twins. A comparative evaluation will be done at the age of 6 to conclusively establish the superiority of the Kinder method. Sly is able to create complex shapes using Lego blocks even though he is only a baby. Meanwhile Whit is very naughty and plays pranks all the time. Although Sylvester and Whit share a telepathic bond, each has no idea of the other's existence. The guards from Dr. Kinder's research facility capture Whit, mistaking him for Sylvester, and take him back to Dr. Kinder's research facility. Sylvester is taken home by Whit's adopted mother, Robin (Kim Cattrall), who is Dr. Kinder's niece. Dan Bobbin is Robin's husband. Robin knows that Kinder has stolen all of Dan's research on babies and is now using it for her own personal profit. Dan and Robin run a Pre-school of their own, where Dan does his own research on babies. Dan was doing his own work on the secret baby language which Kinder did not know about. Dan video tapes Sly talking and suddenly realizes that he can understand what the babies are saying. Dr. Kinder (when Heep compares voice prints of Sly from last week with ones from the current baby) and the seven other baby-geniuses are shocked that Whit and Sylvester switched places at the mall, but Dr. Kinder becomes excited and begins to see this as an opportunity to do a cross evaluation on the twins. However, when she comes to Dan Bobbin's (Peter MacNicol) place, she realizes that Dan can understand babies. She realizes that if Sly tells Dan the truth about her keeping the twins separate, she could go to jail. After the attempts to retrieve Sylvester fail (her goons simulate a power outage in the area and enter the house as power company men, but Sly is able to defeat them), Dr. Kinder decides to move the research facility to Liechtenstein, and they have no choice but to make Whit be the only normal baby to be raised in this research facility until they can find a possible way to get Sylvester back to her research facility. The babies at Bobbin's place hypnotize Lenny (Dom DeLuise), the bus driver, to drive to Dr. Kinder's research facility. Once at the research facility, Sylvester goes to the control room to set the robots from the theme park on the lab scientists. When the Bobbins return home, their natural daughter Carrie (Gabrielle and Megan Robbins) tells her father that the children are in Dr. Kinder's research facility. At the end of the fight, Dr. Kinder captures Whit and takes him to the helicopter pad on the roof. Robin and Dan (Peter MacNicol) chase them to the roof, where Dr. Kinder reveals that she and Robin are not related and that Robin was adopted at age 2. After Dr. Kinder is arrested by the police, Sylvester and Whit come together on the roof to cross over. Dan and Robin adopt Sylvester. Dan is still curious of the secrets of life; but, as the twins have crossed over, they no longer know those secrets. Carrie, their sister, doesn't reveal anything (just giving her father a Sly smile) because adults are never meant to know their secrets.

The film begins by showing the Beindorfs, mother Janet (Jamie Lee Curtis), father Ned (Kevin Pollak), Gregory whose nicknamed "Grover" (Kyle Howard), and Stacy (Amy Sakasitz), a supposedly happy family living a typical family life in the suburbs of Defiance, Ohio. It is revealed that Janet and Ned are not happy and in fact separating although they tell their children it is not a divorce. Groves's friend Matt tells him that usually it starts with a separation and ends with a divorce. He asks Groves to check for tell tale signs like who is moving out (usually mom moving out is temporary), if they are not giving reasons then there is a lot wrong and if the suitcases are already packed to estimate the seriousness of the situation. Grover is being bullied at school by TJ. It is Janet and Ned's marriage anniversary and Grover and Stacy first try to recreate their parents' honeymoon in the basement of their house, but this fails to bring any happiness into their relationship. The children then leave the basement telling their parents they must get another surprise for them upstairs. They go up, close the door, and nail it shut. They vow to keep it shut until their parents work out their problems. They removed all the tools, boarded up the windows and cut the phone line to the basement as well. The first night, Janet and Ned only spend time trying to escape the basement. The next day, the kids call in their parents sick at work and then go to school, as usual. Chief Rocco (Ray Walston) is the next-door neighbor to the Beindorf and is a retired police chief. Grover tells his best friend Matt Finley (Mooky Arizona) what he has done and T.J. Krupp (Russel Harper), the wealthy local bully, overhears the conversation. Matt goes over to the Beindorfs' house to look at the children's work and is impressed. T.J. shows up to have a look and actually installs a newer, more secure door to keep the parents trapped. TJ is almost an adult in size and is able to push Groves's parents back while Groves and Stacy install the new steel door, after removing the old wooden door. TJ and Matt then leave to collect their parents and bring them to the Beindorfs' house to lock them up as well. Matt's father Vic (Wallace Shawn) never keeps a wife for more than two years and T.J.'s father Donald (Christopher McDonald) does not treat his wife Gwenna (Sheila McCarthy) well. Matt also brings his bulldog Cosmo and his two younger brothers, Teddy and Jimmy (who come armed with sleeping bags) and T.J. brings Spot, his pet boa constrictor. When Grover asks what is going on in response to his friends setting up camp at his house, T.J. replies with "Our parents could be down there for months!" The next morning Grover goes to school, and Stacy serves breakfast to all parents in the basement. Janet and Ned almost talk Grover into letting them all out but T.J.'s father, Donald (who's an attorney), threatens him with legal action. Grover finds out that his dream girl, Brooke Figler (Jennifer Love Hewitt), is also having parental problems: her mother Cindy (Jennifer Tilly) acts like a teenager, going so far as to trying to hang out with Brooke's friends. Grover invites her to lock up Cindy with the rest of the parents. The children lock up all of their parents and begin to help them solve their problems. The kids lower a TV camera and speakers by cutting hole in the basement ceiling and having a group therapy session for the parents. The parents try to find a way out of the basement (when Ned finds the blueprints to an old laundry chute) while getting along and seeing what each of their problems are. The children also work out their differences with each other above in the house. They work together to clean up the house and act responsibly while their parents are locked up. As they get to talking, they also defend their respective parents and their quirky habits. Rocco continues to keep an eye on the house. Ned and Janet have a fight in the basement as Ned wants to cut off electricity to the house (fuse box is in the basement), while Janet feels that is negative reinforcement. The rapid turning on and off of lights is witnessed by Rocco from across the street, who calls the cops. The cops only find kids having a pajama party with TJ acting as a grown up, and leave. Janet tries to climb up the laundry chute but cannot hold on and slides right back down. The next morning, Janet's lawyer brings over the divorce papers and Grover realizes that his parents had been lying to him. Even Ned did not know that Janet had asked her lawyer to draw up divorce papers. Ned and Donald dig through the cemented window and push Vic through the hole into the backyard where Rocco sees him and calls the police again. Grover is dejected and realizes that what he did was wrong. The kids eventually give in and give up to the police and their parents are set free. It is revealed at the end that Grover's parents reconciled and took a second honeymoon to Hawaii. Matt's parents' wedding lasted past the two-year mark, and they are expecting another child. T.J.'s parents got divorced though his mom later went back to law school and they opened up a law firm together. Brooke's mother started dating other men instead of intruding on Brooke's dates. Also, Grover and Brooke became boyfriend and girlfriend, and she passionately kisses him in front of their classmates at school for a very long time, causing a slightly awkward moment for the bystanders. However, he concluded if their parents ever try to get divorced again, he might think of locking them in the attic.