Comedy
Bill and his parents are on a road trip to check out prospective colleges. Dad is a loveably failed father and dipsomaniac; Mom is sweetly concerned for her son and has a tinge of wifely sadness about her, too. In a series of successively disastrous interviews, Bill reveals himself to be ill-equipped for higher education, tending to blather on and on about how diverse his talents are, but never wholly convincing any of the admissions officers that he's anything more than a wishful thinker with average test scores.
As the trip wears on, Bill and his father begin chipping away at each other's failings; Bill is especially concerned about his father's drinking. One night, hoping to inspire Bill, Mom reads him a magazine article about a medieval crusade of children (all of whom eventually starved or drown on the way to the holy land.
The next day, Bill meets Laura, a runaway heiress, whom he convinces to join him on some kind of modern day crusade of his own, the goals of which Bill hasn't quite determined yet. Soon enough, they start to pick up other followers, including a homeless man who only speaks in Middle English. Dad hates the whole idea; Mom is supportive; Bill and Laura eventually fall in love. Finally, Dad lays down the law and out-and-out calls Bill a failure. He kicks the hangers-on out of the car, but by the next day Bill has vanished. The ghost of the medieval crusader Mom read about tells the parents that Bill has left them to pursue his crusade and life.