After a long night of partying, an intoxicated Bobby Moore and his friends are killed when their car collides head-on with a truck on a bridge on their way home to the town of Bomont, Georgia. This prompts his father Shaw Moore, the Reverend of the town's church to persuade the city council to pass several draconian laws, including a ban on all unsupervised dancing within the city limits (based, in part, on New York City Cabaret Law).
Three years later, Boston-raised teenager Ren McCormack moves to Bomont to live with his uncle, aunt, and cousins after his mother's death from leukemia and his father's abandonment. Soon after arriving, Ren befriends Willard Hewitt, a fellow senior at Bomont High, and from him learns about the ban on dancing.