Set in present day, in this comedy-drama Jean Hatch, a white senior researcher for a large human rights organization, has cut off ties with her conservative, older sister Susan Marin, a stay-at-home mom, due to their differing ideologies. Jean declines to attend Susan's half-Cuban daughter Theresa's high school graduation party, even though Jean is Susan's only family. When Edward Johnson Town, a black professor and journalist makes a controversial social-media post about Jean’s congressional testimony that goes viral, Susan surprisingly jumps in to defend her younger sister, which sets in motion the unlikely meeting of these three at the Desert Cactus Motel in Texas. And Susan’s daughter, Theresa, decides against her parents’ wishes to take a gap year to do some work at the border. In the desert, full of jumping cactus, these four people unpredictably face their futures together.