Young Jeremiah lives in a stable environment with loving foster parents until the day his troubled mother, Sarah, returns to claim him. Jeremiah becomes swept up in his mother's dangerous world of drugs, seedy hotels, strip joints and revolving lovers. Salvation comes in the form of the boy's ultrareligious grandparents, but soon Jeremiah's mother returns. Maternal love binds the pair together on the road until Sarah's desperate and depraved lifestyle finally consumes her.

Hank Mason lives a modest life in his childhood home. He clings to a pretty girlfriend and works toward a lifestyle that doesn't really suit him. When his father is unable to care for himself and moves back in with Roy, he brings an unfulfilled history with him. Through an avalanche of troubles, father and son realize sometimes you have to break out to break in.