It's about change.
Eddie: Every nine-and-a-half years I see Amanda. This is not a rule, it doesn't have to happen but it does. Most recently was today, I had three dollars.
Three dollars is the story of Eddie (David Wenham), an honest, compassionate man who finds himself with a wife, a child, and three dollars.
Eddie's world revolves around the three women in his life: his brilliant wife Tanya (Frances O'Connor), a passionate academic, their 6-year-old daughter Abby (Joanna Hunt-Prokhovnik), who heightens the stakes on every decision Eddie makes, and his childhood sweetheart, the beautiful, privileged Amanda (Sarah Wynter), who re-appears in his life with mathematical certainty every nine-and-a-half years.
Surviving with a blend of self-depreciating wit, spirited sensitivity and a big heart, his life is rich with the pleasures and pains of love, family, friendship and marriage.
But with only three dollars to his name Eddie will be faced with a choice that will change the direction of his life forever.
Three dollars initially unfolds as a "detective story of the heart" as Eddie investigates the pieces of his life to make sense of the predicament he is in. As we delve into Eddie's past, his childhood infatuation with Amanda sits side by side in prominence with his memory of the first time he met Tanya, his proposal of marriage, their wedding, plans and dreams for the future.
Of particular interest to Eddie's investigation of his life are his recurring, seemingly coincidental encounters with people. Amanda Claremont's regular appearance acts perhaps as a barometer of Eddie's economic descent, and a possible reminder of another path his life could have taken. The return of Nick at Eddie's lowest moment has a surprising impact on his life, the direct result of an earlier encounter and act of kindness.
Three dollars explores how a good man, living only two pay packets away from losing everything, ends up with only three dollars.
At any other time the world would have smiled on Eddie. But times have changed and the world values other things. Full of unexpected humour, Three dollars is the story of a good man in tough times and his resilience in the face of the world's attempts to break him.
Special Agent Matti
*
M (Low level coarse language, low level sex scenes, low level violence, adult themes)
119 minutes (1:59 hours)
306 minutes (4:26 hours) - Box set
Film: 21 April 2005
DVD rental: 28 September 2005
DVD retail: 1 February 2006
DVD retail: 1 February 2006 - Box set