Igby Slocumb (Kieran Culkin), a rebellious and sarcastic seventeen-year-old boy, is at war with the stifling world of �old money� privilege he was born in to. With a schizophrenic father (Bill Pullman), a self-absorbed, distant mother (Susan Sarandon), and a shark-like young republican big brother (Ryan Phillippe), Igby figures there must be a better life out there � and sets about finding it.
Happily flunking out of yet another prep school, Igby is sent off to a military academy in the dreaded Midwest. With the aid of his mother�s pilfered credit card, he goes on the lam. His darkly comedic voyage eventually lands him in New York, where he hides out at his godfather�s (Jeff Goldblum) weekend pied-a-terre. There he encounters a deviant cast of characters, including his godfather�s trophy choreographer girlfriend (Amanda Peet) and the terminally bored Sookie Sapperstein (Claire Danes). In his quest to free himself from the oppressive dysfunction of his family, Igby�s struggles veer from the comic to the tragic in an ultimately noble attempt to keep himself from �going down.�
