Placid Lake has always been different. Always gone a little too far. He has brilliant ideas, which have either brought him great success or devastating failure. Usually the latter. He doesn’t care: being different in a sea of mediocrity is OK by him. On Graduation night it all comes to a head. Having won a prize for his film ‘Life is Super Dooper’ an upbeat celebration of school life, he switches the films for a darker expose of the underbelly of the school: drug-dealing school captains, murderous teachers, and sex for spokesmodel jobs. He feels he’s won a victory, revenge on all those who’ve tormented him, but he has in fact gone too far and later that night ends up flying off the roof of the school landing with a thud and breaking every bone in his body.
As he recuperates, his parents, his best friend Gemma, the police, and his enemies wait for what he’ll say when his jaw is unwired and the full body cast is cut away. He ponders how and why this happened. He comes to a conclusion. He did it to himself, by virtue of who he is. He makes a decision, to change who he is, to become a normal straight-laced person of moderation. He uses his hospital time wisely, reading Anthony Robbins, studying George W. Bush etc.
On release from the hospital he joins an insurance company and embarks on trying to normalise relations with Gemma, i.e. bed her. He feels that they should consummate their relationship. Gemma, struggling with her own malaise, takes off, leaving Placid alone. Undeterred, he throws himself further into his new life. He gets a girlfriend called Jane, starts drinking imported beer, and is placed on ‘the fast track’ at the office. His parents arrive home from an extended holiday only to find their crazy son has become a lot like John Howard, horrified as only Eastern Suburbs parents can be, they try to have him deprogrammed. Rather than fight, he now understands what to do. He just tells them what they want to hear, and conducts a charade for them in the house, before becoming the corporate man, on leaving the house.
As he goes more deeply into his normal life, he struggles with what to say, and think and wear, as insecurity and neurosis start to kick in. Worse, all the normal people he’s latched onto, from his girlfriend Jane to mentor Joel, turn out to be insane. His school tormentors are still chasing him, and he’s lying to everybody about who he is, because he has no idea anymore. It is in the middle of a fast-track corporate seminar and game-playing day that Placid must face what he’s become and what he’s lost and to find a way to get back to who he is.
He ends the film a happy man, safe in the knowledge that to be true to yourself is going to hurt, but it beats death by numbness.
