Cast:

It's a brave move to give the lead role in a major movie to a teenage pop star who has never acted before, just look what  happened to Britney in Crossroads, but Ben Lee in new Australian movie The Rage in Placid Lake acquits himself more than capably.
Lee plays the title role of misfit Placid Lake who has never really fitted in (still with a hippy mum who sends him to school dressed as a girl it's not hard to see why) and when his film (made as an act of revenge for his graduation) about what life is really like at his high school is shown it causes the you know what to hit the you know what.
Realising he has maybe gone too far Lake attempts to turn his life around, getting a job with an insurance company where he is soon on the fast track to success, much to the distress of his parents and shock of his girlfriend Gemma.
A writing and directing debut from Tony McNamara’s debut feature which started life as a play, The Cafe Latte Kid, The Rage in Placid Lake is never less than interesting, not as laugh out laud funny as it thinks it is but as an examination of Australian mainstream culture and how difficult it is to live outside the norm then the movie hits the mark perfectly. 
The cast actually do wonders to lift the film into the cut above range, Lee is surprisingly good as Placid, with the
perfect hangdog features, whilst Miranda Richardson and Garry MacDonald are in fine form as Lake's eccentric parents but the real stand out is Rose Byrne as Placid's virginal girlfriend Gemma.