James Franco stars as Silicon Valley billionaire Laird Mayhew, a self-made young man whose life was spent writing codes and designing apps, leaving him clueless about how to read a room and appropriately modulate his behavior in the uproarious R-rated family comedy “Why Him?”
Laird’s social skills are completely acceptable to his girlfriend Stephanie (Zoey Deutch) and to the millennial circle he belongs, but does not sit well with Stephanie’s dad, Ned (Bryan Cranston). Ned, a small-town father, owner of a struggling mid-sized printing business in Michigan, is complete opposites with Laird who is making billions in the digital realm.
During Ned’s 55th birthday party, Stephanie joins the event via Skype to send well wishes to her dad from her Stanford dorm room. The Flemings and their party guests are surprised by an unexpected (and naked) introduction to her new boyfriend Laird…or at least a part of him. Distraught over the fact that Stephanie has uncharacteristically been hiding something from him, Ned begrudgingly agrees to travel with the family to spend the holidays in California to meet his daughter's first serious boyfriend. Ned, along with his wife Barb (Megan Mullally) and son Scotty (Griffin Gluck) experience what it’s like to live in the eco-friendly home of a Silicon Valley billionaire:
1. Laird’s sprawling hipster estate in Palo Alto is as minimalist as it can get for more space to move around.
2. Meals served are from lawn-to-table. His house is surrounded with hectares of lawns where he keeps an array of animals, trees and vegetables.
3. The expansive “smart house” is completely paperless, bathrooms included.
