After causing the company he works for to lose hundreds of millions of dollars, Drew is fired from his job. After being fired, he is promptly dumped by his girlfriend, Ellen. On the verge of suicide, Drew is given a new purpose in life. Following the death of his father, Drew has to fly back to his family's small Kentucky hometown of Elizabethtown in order to make certain that his father's dying wishes are fulfilled. On the way home, Drew meets a...

Adapted from a memoir by Benjamin Mee, the story of how the author, who has lost his wife, and his children cope with a dilapidated zoo, dealing with escaped tigers, raising endangered animals, working with an eclectic skeleton crew and readying the zoo for a reopening.