Peter Silverblatt is a liberal writer from New York City working in Los Angeles where he meets and falls for his dream girl and inspiration to write: a Southern belle named Melanie Branson. But Melanie inadvertently opens a Pandora's box when she invites Peter to her hometown in Georgia to meet her conservative, but highly eccentric and dysfunctional family who include her two exasperating brothers Larry, and Dink, and her cranky, meddling father who'll do anything to break up the happy union between Peter and Melanie... anything includes trying to set Peter up with the local town tramp Laurel Lee.