The mid-life crisis of a husband and father who, on his 40th birthday, decides to revisit his punk-rock past by throwing an extravagant party in the presidential suite of the Drake Hotel - where he encounters his beautiful ex-girlfriend and former bandmates who have since moved on to bigger and better things.

After being kicked out of his rock band, guitarist slacker Dewey Finn faces a mountain of debts and depression. He shares an apartment with his best friend, Ned Schneebly, an old band member who is now a substitute teacher. Dewey accepts a job as a substitute teacher at a snobbish private elementary school where his attitude and hijinks have a powerful result on his students. He learns they are talented young musicians, and he decides to form a rock band with them to win the $10,000 prize money...