The Spectacular Now

Sutter Keely is a charming and popular 18-year-old who has spent his senior year of high school partying and drinking alcohol. After his girlfriend Cassidy breaks up with him, Sutter writes in a college application essay that his biggest hardship in life is getting dumped. Then, he sneaks into a bar and gets blackout drunk.

The next morning, Sutter is awoken on a front lawn by Aimee Finecky, a girl in his grade whose name he does not know. She is in the middle of her mother's paper route, so he joins her to find his car. They arrange to have lunch that week, where he asks her to tutor him in geometry, where he asks her to a party. When she confesses she has never been drunk before, never had a boyfriend, and does not think she can go to college because her mother needs her help, Sutter tells her that she is not responsible for her mother, before complimenting and kissing her.

Waking up hungover, Sutter realizes he asked Aimee to prom at the party. He avoids her at school and goes to Cassidy's house. The exes get drunk and reminisce, but Cassidy ultimately tells Sutter that they have no future together, and asks him to leave.

After Aimee's friend warns Sutter not to hurt Aimee, he takes her to dinner at his sister Holly's house. There, Aimee talks frankly about the death of her father from an opioid overdose and her dreams of a perfect marriage.

Sutter and Aimee's relationship grows more serious, and they have sex. Afterward, he reveals his mother Sara kicked his father Tommy out when he was a child and has forbidden Sutter from seeing him. The pair make a pact to stand up to their mothers.

On prom night, Aimee appreciates Sutter's gift of a personalized flask. After the dance, she tells him that she is going to college in Philadelphia near her sister, who can help her find an apartment and a job. Aimee asks Sutter to come with her and go to junior college, and he hesitantly agrees.

Getting Tommy's phone number from Holly, Sutter arranges to meet up with his father to attend a baseball game. He brings Aimee with him, but, when they arrive, Tommy admits he forgot about their plans, and instead takes the teens to a local bar. During a brief conversation with Sutter, Tommy reveals he left his family, rather than being kicked out by Sara, before leaving with his girlfriend, who is upset to just be learning he has a son. Tommy asks Sutter to pick up the tab and meet him at his motel, but fails to arrive, and Sutter and Aimee find him back at the bar drinking with his friends. Disillusioned, Sutter drives away.

Aimee attempts to comfort Sutter and says she loves him, but, angry and drunk, he snaps at her. After almost causing an accident, he tells her that he is bad for her and forces her out of the car. Crying and not paying attention to the road, Aimee is clipped by a passing car. Her arm is broken, but she forgives Sutter.

Following their graduation ceremony, Sutter refuses a drink from Aimee and talks with Cassidy, who tells him that she is moving to California with her boyfriend. Later, Sutter's boss tells Sutter that he can only afford to keep one employee and wants to keep Sutter, who is good with customers, but only if he no longer comes to work drunk. Unable to guarantee his sobriety, Sutter quits.

Aimee cannot get hold of Sutter the night they are to catch a bus to Philadelphia, leaving her to make the trip alone, heartbroken and confused. He gets drunk at a bar and manages to make it home, though he runs over his mailbox. After a cathartic argument with Sara, Sutter reassesses his life and completes the college application essay, despite having missed the submission deadline, confessing that his biggest hardship is himself, and his insistence on living only for the moment has been a defense mechanism. He drives to Philadelphia and finds Aimee as she is leaving class. They make eye contact, but her expression is inscrutable.

The rights to Tharp's novel were first acquired by Fox Searchlight Pictures in 2009. Marc Webb, who had already directed Neustadter and Weber's script for 500 Days of Summer (2009), was set to direct the film.^[4] According to Ponsoldt, Webb left the film to work on The Amazing Spider-Man (2012), and Searchlight lost the rights after that.^[5]

Principal photography commenced in Athens, Georgia, in July 2012, and wrapped a month later.^[6] While the novel is set in Oklahoma, director Ponsoldt decided to shoot in his hometown,^[6] explaining:

The script didn't identify where it was set – the setting just wasn't a big city. It felt vaguely suburban – or kind of like a college town. It seemed to me that the script had a sense of place in the way that Breaking Away did. Athens was such an obvious candidate as a setting to shoot the film in – and it was really the only place I wanted to make the film. Filming in Athens was incredibly meaningful to me. We shot in the streets and houses of my childhood!^[7]