Jeremy Jacobs is an unemployed, directionless twenty-something whose only real responsibility is caring for his autistic younger brother, Greg. While zoning out at one of Greg’s soccer games, Jeremy overhears a bizarre conversation that leads to an even stranger job opportunity: becoming a professional henchman for JP Crosetti, a dying tech billionaire bent on world domination. Before he can join the team, Jeremy must be evaluated by Helen, an unconventional therapist who asks a deceptively simple question: Is he happy? Jeremy has no idea. Helen tells him happiness requires three things—someone to love, something to do, and something to look forward to. Jeremy has none of them.

Soon, Jeremy is working inside Crosetti’s secret underground lair beneath a sprawling mega mall, where eccentric scientists develop doomsday technology and employees sign next-of-kin forms before clocking in. There he meets Jane, a sharp-witted grocery clerk who’s just as adrift as he is. Together, they’re inducted into Crosetti’s army of hench people and discover their boss’s master plan: use orbiting satellites to disable power grids and extort corrupt governments. But Crosetti’s supervillain ambitions mask something unexpectedly human. Dying of cancer, he’s desperate to secure a future for his teenage daughter, Penelope, who has Down syndrome.

Knowing how devoted Jeremy is to Greg, Crosetti entrusts Penelope to him. Jeremy introduces her to Greg’s world and the Friendship Center, where Greg spends his days alongside his silent, gentle-giant best friend, Anthony. Penelope and Greg quickly fall for each other, while Jeremy and Jane grow closer. But as Crosetti’s health deteriorates, so does his judgment. Increasingly paranoid and desperate, he activates his ultimate plan to cripple the U.S. power grid. Jeremy, Jane, and Crosetti’s eccentric lieutenant, Trey, race to stop him—only to discover Greg, Penelope, and Anthony have entered the lair and are trapped in the chaos. In the critical moment, the seemingly passive Anthony becomes the unlikely hero, locking himself inside the control room and hitting the kill switch that prevents catastrophe.

One year later, Jeremy has traded supervillainy for something meaningful: a new, state-of-the-art Friendship Center, with plans to build more around the world. Greg and Penelope are together, and so are Jeremy and Jane. When Helen again asks Jeremy if he’s happy, he finally has an answer. Jane is someone to love. The Friendship Center is something to do. And the future they’re building is something to look forward to. Jeremy realizes that the ridiculous job he took because he had no direction ultimately gave him one.