The Rage in Placid Lake (Tony McNamara, 2003)
Writer-director Tony McNamara’s amiable but shallow coming of age film tells the story of Placid Lake (Ben Lee), who has been bullied throughout his formative years. After a particularly violent confrontation at the end of his final year of high school, he undergoes an epiphany: he needs to try to fit in to normal society. So he abandons (or at least attempts to abandon) his unconventional ways, opting to go corporate and take a menial clerical job at the Icarus insurance company.
Essentially, this is The Graduate in reverse: it plays out the scenario had Dustin Hoffman’s Ben started out more of an iconoclast, but had taken that advice to go into plastics. It wasn’t just the plot that reminded me of Mike Nichol’s film, either. Ben Lee (a newcomer to film but an established singer-songwriter) has an awkward look and offbeat screen presence that is distinctly reminiscent of the early Hoffman. It was a gamble for Richardson to use the untried Lee in such a central role, but it pays off: Lee is somewhat amateurish at times, but his gawky, unconventional demeanor is very likable. To support Lee, McNamara has chosen an experienced and reliable supporting cast. Miranda Richardson and Gary McDonald, in particular, are very funny as Placid’s hippie parents, while the suddenly ubiquitous Rose Byrne plays Placid’s childhood friend Gemma.
The film is amiable throughout and has generally received supportive reviews from Australian critics. Certainly there’s not a lot actually wrong with it, and it has a lot of amusing dialogue, even if it is sometimes overwritten and theatrical sounding. The scenes in Placid’s office are well done, and the film lifts whenever Richardson and McDonald are on screen. Yet there’s something disappointingly conventional about the whole enterprise, and it never really leads anywhere terribly interesting. For example, take the subplot relating to Gemma, who is academically brilliant, but is labouring under the expectations of her doting father. This story plays out in parallel with Placid’s, and Byrne is very likable in the role, but McNamara has no new shades or twists to add to a plot very familiar from other teen dramas. (Compare, for example, the much more effective use of a similar plot device in Looking for Alibrandi).
I don’t want to give the wrong idea by making such criticism: the film flies by with laughs throughout and is a very enjoyable way to spend an evening. Yet I can’t shake the feeling that McNamara was aiming for something more satirical than he has achieved. The dilemma that both Placid and Gemma face – negotiating the balance between self-fulfillment and the expectations of others – is an interesting one. Furthermore, the selfishness of Placid’s parents – despite their veneer of 60s-era anti-materialism – provides great fodder for an exploration of the contrasting choices made by the two generations. Yet ultimately McNamara ducks most of the interesting questions he raised and ties the film up with a simple romantic resolution. I shouldn’t be too harsh about this: The Graduate is one of my favourite films, and it does much the same. The problem is, with Placid’s parents, McNamara has already highlighted how poorly those who based their worldview on The Graduate turned out.