Finding a Family

The film begins with Alex Chivescu writing letters to prospective foster families, explaining his unique situation as a high-achieving student at Eagle Creek High School. Through flashbacks, we see his early childhood with his mother, Ileana, a brilliant professor who instilled in him a love for learning and a dream of attending Harvard. Their lives change forever when Ileana suffers a serious head injury in a car accident, leading to the development of bipolar disorder. As she cycles through periods of stability and neglectful or abusive behavior, Alex is repeatedly placed in foster care. By age 16, Alex realizes that his mother's inability to stay on her medication will keep him in a cycle of instability. In a heartbreaking courtroom scene, he testifies to terminate her parental rights, not out of a lack of love, but for self-preservation. He is moved to Mercy Point, a restrictive orphanage where he is initially forbidden from having a job or a cell phone. There, he befriends a driver named Henry and a fellow resident named Carlos, whom he tutors in math. When budget cuts threaten his ability to attend Eagle Creek High for his senior year, Alex takes matters into his own hands and mails letters to families in the school district, asking for a home. He is briefly taken in by the Franks family, but they are soon transferred to New York. Eventually, Jim and Suzanne Bante and their daughter Jen respond to his letter. The Bantes offer him a permanent place in their family, but Alex struggles to transition from a survival mindset to a familial one, initially viewing the arrangement as a business transaction. Over the course of his senior year, Jen helps him realize he is worthy of love, and Jim and Suzanne provide the emotional support he lacked. A crisis with his mother's health forces Alex to confront his guilt over 'abandoning' her. With the Bantes' encouragement, he attends his Harvard interview and finally opens up about his past. The film concludes with Alex receiving his acceptance letter to Harvard and graduating as a top student. At the graduation party, he reconciles with his mother, who expresses her pride in him, and he acknowledges the Bantes as his true family.