Plot

A creative writing assignment yields complex results between a teacher and his talented student.

A talented young writer embarks on a creative odyssey when her teacher assigns a project that entangles them both in an increasingly complex web. As lines blur and their lives intertwine, professor and protégé must confront their darkest selves while straining to preserve their individual sense of purpose and the things they hold most dear.—Lionsgate

Jonathan Miller, a creative writing class teacher, is flattered beyond words when his top student, Cairo Sweet, praises his only book. As a result, Jonathan assigns Cairo a controversial midterm assignment to challenge her literary aptitude. But as the disillusioned tutor rekindles his dormant passion for writing through the fledgeling author's unrestrained talent, a complex connection forms between the two intellectuals. With Cairo's rebellious ambition and blasphemous adulation putting a strain on the professor's lukewarm marriage, will Miller's girl be Jonathan's downfall?—Nick Riganas

Cairo Sweet, an 18-year-old girl, lives alone in her wealthy family's mansion in Tennessee. Her attorney parents are away on a business trip while she completes her senior year in high school. Cairo takes the creative writing class of teacher Jonathan Miller, and impresses him with her wide knowledge in literature and her familiarity with Miller's own book, Apostrophes and Ampersands. Miller has not written since he got married and started teaching. His emotionally unavailable wife, Beatrice, is a more successful author who disdains her husband's lack of ambition and failure to write new material.

Cairo has to write a college admission essay for Yale University, with the subject being "the greatest achievement to date", but she cannot find anything worthy to write about. Winnie, Cairo's best friend, tells her to experience the excitement of a teacher-student affair such as she intends to do with the school's baseball coach and physics teacher, Boris Fillmore, who is Miller's best friend. Seeing the intellectual connection between Cairo and Miller, Winnie suggests Cairo seduce Miller.

Cairo and Miller begin to spend more time together outside class, sharing common interests in novels, poems and Tennesseean culture. Miller assigns Cairo to write a short story in the style of her favorite author, and she chooses Henry Miller; despite being reluctant due to the author's provocative style, Miller approves. When he accidentally takes Cairo's cell phone, she asks him to return it personally. When Miller arrives at her parents' mansion, Cairo welcomes him in a sexy dress and kisses him in the rain. Inspired, she writes an erotic short story about a sexual relationship between a teacher and his student. While Miller reads it alone, he gets extremely aroused and masturbates to it.

Miller declares the story unacceptable and demands that Cairo rewrite it, but she calls out his cowardice and hypocrisy. Offended by Miller's rejection, Cairo sends the story to the school's vice principal, Joyce Manor, as revenge to expose a possible affair between them. She also takes advantage of Winnie's attraction to her by convincing her to send sexual photos of themselves to Fillmore, leading them to undress and kiss passionately.

Manor questions Cairo and Miller separately about their relationship. Despite claiming that nothing inappropriate has happened between them, Miller has to take full responsibility as the adult in the situation, resulting in his suspension. This causes a rift in his friendship with Fillmore, who blames him for not knowing his limits as a teacher. An argument with Beatrice about what happened also prompts Miller to vent his repressed anger at his wife and point out the toxic nature of their marriage.

Realizing what Cairo's actions have done to Miller, Winnie asks her to withdraw the charges against him, but Cairo refuses, calling Miller's downfall her "greatest achievement to date." She writes her experiences into her admission essay in the same style Miller used in his book. Miller, having reached rock bottom but inspired for the first time in years, decides to write a new book.