In 1965, bohemian musician Arlo Guthrie has attempted to dodge the draft by attending college in Montana. His long hair and unorthodox approach to study get him in trouble with local police as well as residents, so he quits school and hitches a ride back east. He first visits his ailing father Woody Guthrie in a New York City hospital, then takes the stage at various local venues to share his songs and his stories.
Arlo ultimately returns to his friends Ray Brock and Alice Brock at their home, a deconsecrated church in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, where they welcome friends and like-minded bohemian types to crash. Among these are Arlo’s schoolmate Roger Crowther and the artist Shelly, an ex-heroin addict who is involved with a motorcycle racing club. [Alice Brock] is starting up a restaurant in nearby Stockbridge, and Arlo writes a jingle for the business that gets aired on a local radio station, drawing in the first wave of customers. Frustrated with Ray’s casual attitude, [Alice Brock] has an affair with Shelly and leaves for New York to visit Arlo and Roger, who are paying Woody another visit. Ray arrives to escort her home, claiming he has invited “a few” friends for Thanksgiving.
After Thanksgiving dinner, Arlo and Roger offer to haul months’ worth of garbage from Alice and Ray’s house to the town dump. They load up a red VW microbus with the garbage, plus a number of tools, and head for the dump. It’s closed for the holiday, so they drive around and discover a pile of garbage dropped at the bottom of a short cliff. They decide to add their trash to the heap.
The next morning, they get a call from Officer Obie who asks about the garbage. After admitting to littering, they agree to pick up the garbage and meet him at the police station. They load the microbus again with their tools and head to the station, where they are promptly arrested. Arlo and Roger are driven to the “scene of the crime,” where extensive forensic evidence is collected amid a media circus. Hours later, Alice bails the boys out. At the trial the next day, [Officer Obie] has photos of the crime, but the judge is blind and simply levies a $25 fine, orders the boys to pick up the garbage, and sets them free. They transport the garbage to New York and place it on a barge. Back at the church, Arlo pursues a relationship with an Asian girl, Mari-chan.
Days later, Arlo is summoned for a physical examination related to the Vietnam War draft at the New York City induction center on Whitehall Street. He attempts to render himself unfit for military service by acting like a homicidal maniac in front of a psychiatrist, an act that earns him praise from those observing. Because of Guthrie’s prior littering charge, he is kept with others on the so‑called Group W bench. He is ultimately deemed unfit for service when he questions the logic of treating littering as a war-ready threat, which raises suspicion about “his kind” and prompts officials to send his records to Washington, D.C.
Back at the church, Arlo finds Ray and members of the motorcycle club showing home movies of a recent race. A moment later, Shelly [Michael McClanathan] enters, and Ray pummels him until he reveals a stash of heroin concealed in a mobile crafted from spare car parts. Shelly roars off into the night on his motorcycle and dies. The funeral features Joni Mitchell’s Songs to Aging Children Come. The next day, Woody dies, and Arlo laments not having visited his father one last time. Ray and Alice hold a hippie-style wedding and celebration in the church, and a drunken Ray suggests selling the church to start a country commune, while taking responsibility for Shelly’s death. Alice and Ray watch as Arlo and Mari-chan depart in Arlo’s microbus, and Ray returns inside while Alice stands on the steps, gazing out into the distance.
