Laguna Beach, California, 2010. Alireza Courdee, a 14-year-old straight-A student and chemistry whiz, takes his first hit of pot. In as long as it takes to inhale and exhale, he is transformed from the high-achieving son of Iranian immigrants into a happy-go-lucky stoner. For the first time, Reza --- now Rez --- feels like an American teen. But then he changes again, falling out with the bad boy surfers and in with a group of kids more awake to the world around them, who share his background and whose ideas fill him with a very different sense of purpose. Within a year, Reza and his girlfriend are making their way to Syria to be part of a Muslim nation rising from the ashes of the civil war.