The Rage in Placid Lake is a beautiful, funny encouragement to lead a less structured life in order to achieve greater happiness. The titular character, so named by his anti-establishment parents in hopes of him living up to that image, is a human Gumby in the middle of a frantic social tug-of-war.
Placid’s parents use him as a guinea pig for exercising their oddball societal beliefs. Their clueless experiments consistently transform Placid into a lamb to the slaughter, similar to Marcus in About A Boy. The continual adolescent opposition Placid faces as a result of his stark differences is personified by the brutal ostracism and fists of three bullies. These abusive classmates are the epitome of the Lake parents’ collective enemies and yet the adults continue to assume that their failed vicarious efforts are beneficial to their son. Poor, mangled, confused Placid.
And then there is Gemma, Placid’s lifelong platonic female friend who has been the only rock in his turbulent odd life. Gemma is an intellectual prodigy, trained from a young age by her academia-loving father to compensate for the loss of her talented mother. Unsure of another way of life and wary of the Lake parents’ polar opposite existence, Gemma unquestioningly accepts her father’s great expectations, especially when he laces his requests with the memory of her mother. Through Gemma, Placid is able to take enough of the wacky from his parents and enough common sense from her world to forge a quirky personality bent on living in an independent manner tangental to both of these parties. The only problem is that he thrives in her presence and nowhere else.
As a result of his unusual situation, Placid concocts a plan to shock both his parents (by joining the way of life they oppose) and the bullies (by succeeding at their rules) in hopes of winning Gemma over by turning himself into the man he perceives she will love. By first physically breaking himself, Placid assumes that he can do the same personally. Wrapped in a full body cast, he rests supine on a hospital bed while finalizing steps to become that person and then takes swift action.
Of course, when Placid puts on the suit and walks the walk, he is faced with another conundrum. In compromising his basic being to become a mold-fitting 9-5er, Placid likewise alters his relationship with Gemma for the worse.
When Gemma then decides that she too wants to buck the system, Placid experiences the true epiphany that failed to occur as a result of his body cast experience. As in most coming-of-age stories, the leads discover that change is often bad and that they were better off where they began. However, neither would value the importance of their true selves had it not been for the attempted evolution. As a result, they ironically change for the better by basically staying the same. The only difference is that they now know about life on the other side.
In addition to the mostly fresh take on “to thine own self be true,” Tony McNamara’s film is an intelligent commentary on having “hip” parents and what their rebel ways do to their offspring. Doug and Sylvia Lake are like Bernie and Roz Focker if they had stayed in the commune. While both sets of movie parents make life interesting for their only-child sons through unconventional child rearing, the Lakes make interpreting love as their overriding message difficult to fathom. Greg Focker’s good heart comes from his mother and father, but Placid Lake is forced to find his support system outside of the family in Gemma. It is this love that allows Placid to reconnect with his family despite their inability to respect him as a true individual.
Ben Lee’s comedic stage behavior as a musician translates well to his feature film debut. His constantly grinning Placid is a testament to the “sticks and stones” playground rhyme, both unaffected by lifelong bullies’ taunts and made of a fragile skeletal system. Rose Byrne is given the Anne Hathaway-in-Princess Diaries style treatment as Gemma, a wonderful foil for Placid who is more like him than he initially realizes. The duo's scenes are the film's best and its overall weakness may be a lack of screen time for Gemma.
Is Placid Lake the Australian Garden State? Maybe, but it is more a hybrid with Zach Braff’s film and an Abrams/Zucker Brothers yukfest. Sometimes the gags feel too isolating but greatly succeed at conveying discomfort in the vein of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” or the U.S. “The Office.” Unintentional cross-dressing may be the linking factor between Placid and Michael Scott, though Placid was at least aware of the situation at age 5 and Michael clueless at 40something. It is this awareness that allows Placid to stand out as a new brand of quirky young adult film protagonists who want audiences to learn to relax. Instead of conforming, they want us find that comfortable balance between anarchist and corporate servant, though thinking too hard about the whole concept is taboo as well. Thanks for the advice, Placid. Now go find a job.