“You can’t always get what you want.” Redwood (Ryan Grantham) is a child of the 1970s, born to hippie parents who, at this film’s beginning, tearfully separate at the US-Canada border. Taken to Canada by his dope-dealing dad (Chad Willett), our young protagonist has his life turned upside-down just as he reaches adolescence: a drug bust leaves him consigned to America, and the care of his long-absent mother (Jennifer Copping). Stuck with a hostile new family, Redwood has to make the most of a hard situation. What keeps him going is his obsession with golf, which is kept alive by some help from a grizzled old codger (Scott Hylands), who may be a certifiable loony or, just perhaps, the sanest character in the movie.

This is a wonderfully bittersweet film, mixing belly laughs with moments of stinging poignancy. Redwood wants to beat Jack Nicklaus’s golf record, to be reunited with his imprisoned father and, of course, to triumph over every adversity life throws at him—and there are plenty. There are no easy solutions in this coming-of-age comedy, but there is hope: for love, for the future, and for some measure of peace in the difficult present. What Redwood learns is what we all learn with time: that if you try sometimes, you just might find you get what you need.