Rocket Science (film) - Plot

Plot

Hal Hefner is a fifteen-year-old student of Plainsboro, New Jersey with a pronounced stutter. His older brother Earl is an obsessive-compulsive kleptomaniac, his father Doyle has recently walked out on the family following a heated argument, and his mother Juliet has begun to date the father of his school friend, Heston.

Hal is riding the school bus home one day when he is approached by Ginny Ryerson, the articulate, competitive star of the debate team. She urges him to join her and replace her former partner, Ben Wekselbaum, who has dropped out of school after falling silent midspeech and losing the New Jersey State High School Policy Debate Championships. Though Hal initially declines, he finds himself besotted with Ginny and agrees to be her partner. Hal and Ginny begin to study for the upcoming tournament and form arguments on either side of whether the federal government should support the teaching of sexual abstinence in public schools. When Hal finds himself unable to talk in debate practice, he runs out of the room and hides in the janitorial closet, where Ginny joins him. Hal kisses her hopefully, but she subsequently falls out of contact with him. Ginny's parents assure him that she is confident with the work they have already completed, and that she will meet him on the day of the debate.

On the day of the tournament, Coach Lumbly of the debate team tells Hal that Ginny has transferred to Townsend Prep for the remainder of her senior year, and that Hal will be paired with Heston for the day. Struggling with his speech and his stutter, Hal calls his therapist, who suggests that he sing his speech or talk with a foreign accent. Hal and Heston finish the day without much success, while Ginny wins a trophy for First Place as an Individual Speaker, which inexplicably goes missing. Coach Lumbly asks Hal to leave the team, telling him that Ginny had never planned to debate as his partner, and had only recruited him as a cruel joke to damage the school's chances of winning. He breaks into Earl's bedroom and takes a bottle of stolen tequila, then rides with Heston to his friend Lewis's house, who lives across the street from Ginny. A drunken Hal drags Lewis's mother's cello across the street and throws it through Ginny's window just as she is arriving home with her new teammate, Ram.

Later in the year, Hal's mother breaks up with Heston's father, and Hal decides to seek out Ginny and return her trophy, which he stole. She rejects his apology, and he travels to Trenton—the "Big City"—to find Ben, Ginny's former debate partner. Hal convinces Ben to debate with him and they register as a home-schooled team in the upcoming Policy Debate Championships. In order to overcome his stutter, Ben helps Hal to write his entire speech to the tune of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic". He is interrupted in the middle of his song-speech by Coach Lumbly and a Debate Official, who disqualifies Hal and Ben on the grounds that neither of them is home-schooled and thus would have to be enrolled in a school team. Ben is satisfied with their efforts, but Hal finds Ginny before leaving. He insists that one day will be his day, while she tells him that it was not easy for her to betray him as he walks off. He spends the evening at a nearby beach, and when his father picks him up, Hal tries to tell him his view that life and love "shouldn't be rocket science", although he is unable to say the phrase "rocket science" due to his stutter.