Barney Springboro is a quiet, bookish student at Ralph Waldo Emerson High School who spends his afternoons conducting small-scale experiments on laboratory mice. His routine life gets a jolt when his friend Peyton Nichols, the yearbook photographer, drags him into the middle of school chaos as they prepare for a big baseball game against a rival team. In the midst of the hustle, Peyton makes a bold move and seduces Corrine Updike, one of the school administrators, while Barney retreats back to his quiet world of science, eager to keep his work and his peculiar gifts under wraps.
Barney’s life takes another strange turn when the class president, Bernadette, pushes Peyton to photograph Barney with the orchids he’s nurturing for the principal, Walter Coolidge. In a laboratory mishap, a beaker spills and a glittering cloud of smoke envelops Barney, knocking him unconscious. He wakes up at home to a tense, overbearing mother who scolds him for his tardiness and social awkwardness, and soon after, his bedroom door slams shut as if the house itself is reacting to something unseen and inexplicable.
The next day in English class, Barney is consumed by a daydream about a popular girl, Jane Mitchell, whose vanity seems to mirror the attention she garners from others. When the teacher calls on him unexpectedly, Barney’s bewildered expression makes the classroom map fall and hit Jane, an early hint of his powers stirring just beneath the surface. Peyton’s interest in Jane resurfaces, but she explains she has a college‑age boyfriend, complicating the social web around Barney. That same afternoon, Barney stumbles upon his telekinetic abilities, levitating objects with a thought, while Bernadette and Peyton watch from outside the lab, astonished and a little fearful. He shares his secret with his friends, who urge him to keep it hidden, and he discovers another surprise—the ability to make inanimate things dance through his imagination, even animating a ventriloquist dummy that startles his mother.
Barney’s abilities become a public spectacle during the school’s big baseball game, when he subtly controls the trajectory of the ball to deliver a winning home run. Principal Coolidge is keen to monitor Barney’s growth but remains blocked by a missing key to the lab. Barney agrees to let Bernadette draft a report about him for an upcoming college science journal, a move that hints at the growing curiosity about his talents beyond their school walls.
The spring weekend brings a carnival‑tinged party at an amusement park to celebrate graduation. Peyton and Jane’s relationship is strained by the party games and the high‑stakes stakes of the betting around them. A beer‑drinking contest and a carnival game push Jane’s boyfriend to the edge, while Barney and Bernadette share a quieter moment, acknowledging old crushes and the strange closeness that has formed between them. The mood shifts as the pair retreat to Barney’s laboratory for a more intimate moment, and soon they share a quiet, affectionate evening together.
Back at school, Jane’s mood darkens as she reflects on her decision to sleep with Peyton, and she returns to her boyfriend’s orbit. Peyton isn’t deterred, though, and pressures Barney to accompany him to a fraternity party where a casino‑themed atmosphere invites risk and temptation. The plan hinges on Barney’s powers to influence luck, but Bernadette starts to question whether manipulating chance—especially to win money—is the right path. Meanwhile, Mrs. Updike answers a personal ad, leading to an unexpected date with Principal Coolidge, who pursues a newfound romance and, for a while, happily steps out of his institutional role.
At the restaurant, Coolidge discovers the surprising chemistry with his date, Rose Burnhart, and they give in to a long‑held attraction. The fraternity party becomes a stage for deception and reveal as Barney’s attempts to balance the roulette wheel are undermined by Robert, who uses a hidden button to steer the game. The chaos escalates when Barney’s powers accidentally levitate the entire roulette wheel, turning the party into a spectacle and attracting the attention of everyone present.
As the night winds on, Bernadette’s calls go unanswered, and Barney drinks alone in his lab, trying to steady the tremor in his life. The morning after, he apologizes to Bernadette and arranges to meet her at the prom, hoping for a normal moment. But the night takes another turn when two priests are called in to perform an exorcism on the boy, a desperate attempt by his mother to reclaim control of her son’s life. Barney uses his ventriloquist dummy to improvise as he tries to escape the scrutiny around him.
The prom night arrives with the usual pomp and pressure: Peyton and Jane soar to prom‑court glory as king and queen, while Jane’s feelings about Peyton crystallize into disappointment. Barney and Bernadette share a late‑night moment on the dance floor, their connection growing even as Peyton tries to pull Barney into a scheme, offering airline tickets to Las Vegas to continue gambling. Barney, true to his boundaries, declines the lure. Tensions erupt when Robert confronts Peyton after discovering the nude photographs of Jane, and a furious altercation follows. In a dramatic twist, Barney’s powers unleash a fierce wind that rips through the crowd, scattering clothes and forcing everyone outside in a moment of chaotic spectacle. He uses his abilities to calm the storm, topple Robert’s friends, and reveal Jane’s vulnerability to the crowd, prompting her to retreat in humiliation.
The chaos of the night leaves Barney disoriented, and he pretends to have lost his powers to blend back into ordinary life. Yet as the night ends, a final, breathless moment confirms the bond between him and Bernadette: Barney seizes her by the waist and carries them aloft through a shimmering gateway of light, lifting them out of the chaos and into the night sky, a vivid and hopeful escape that hints at possibilities beyond the rules and expectations of high school.
Throughout it all, the story threads together a boy’s struggle with his extraordinary talent, the temptations of adolescence, and the delicate balance between secrecy and self‑expression, all set against a backdrop of friendship, romance, and a school that’s forever a stage for the next big leap.
