After 16-year-old Alice Palmer drowns at a local dam, her family experiences a series of strange, inexplicable events centered in and around their home. Unsettled, the Palmers seek the help of a psychic and parapsychologist, who discovers that Alice led a secret, double life. At Lake Mungo, Alice's secret past emerges.
The sole survivor of a lost whaling ship relates the tale of his captain's self-destructive obsession to hunt the white whale, Moby Dick.
In 1950s Australia, young Celia is growing up with a sense of isolation and mistrust of the world that surrounds her. Her mother and father won't let her play with the kids next door because their parents are communists. Then her pet bunny is taken away because of rabbit overpopulation. And, more traumatizing yet, when her grandmother dies, she's the one to discover the corpse. To cope, she retreats into elaborate fantasies.
