Karl is a cheerful and endearing 8-year-old, in spite of being terminally ill with a rare neuro-muscular disease. His single mother Judy tries to give him a normal life, and Karl befriends an elderly man called Jack.
In the future, a health nut and his tag-along girlfriend become trapped in a drive-in theater that has become a concentration camp for outcast youths.
Two brothers working as news cameramen for competing companies in '50s Australia find their lives dramatically affected by the constantly changing times in which they live.