Linny and Van are both "short girls" but that is where the resemblance ends. Linny, the younger sister, is pretty, popular, and fashionable. Van is a plain and socially awkward overachiever who becomes an immigration lawyer. The sisters have been locked in a relationship of mutual disdain for as long as they can remember but when their father, an eccentric, amusing, and slightly tragic inventor of the "Luoung Arm," a gadget to help short people reach objects in high places, finally decides to take the oath of American citizenship in order to compete in an American Idol style reality show for inventors, the sisters must put aside their contempt - and their crumbling romantic lives - to help him. The forced reunion, however, jolts Linny and Van into seeing one another with new eyes. Bound together by culture, history, and the loss of their mother, Linny and Van come to recognize the values of their shared past.