Following his father's suicide, Ollie (Rory Culkin) makes a trip to his family's lake house with his friend Nikolai (Robert Sheehan) to steal a valuable recording, which is named for and after the location "Sway Lake." Ollie believes his father would've wanted him to have the 78, which belonged in the family for generations, as he genuinely appreciates the music. The bouncy '20s party tune, which plays throughout, is actually great, but there's a grating fairy tale vibe to the film, especially when Ollie and Nikolai's motivations are narrated through an almost "once upon a time" tone.
Things get a little more complicated when Ollie's grandmother Charlie (Mary Beth Peil) also arrives at Sway Lake with the intention of selling the record because she needs the money. Ollie, meanwhile, gets involved with a local girl, Isadora (Isabelle McNally), and Nikolai gets caught up in the Sway family history with his own, carried-away obsession with Charlie. But the most interesting character here is Marlena (Elizabeth Peña), the family maid, who puts up with semi-aggressive racism from the privileged Sways but whose storyline is ultimately squandered.