Every day at 5pm Andrew, a middle-aged man working a white-collar job in a community legal centre, drives home through Melbourne’s outer suburbs in peak-hour traffic. The long commute affords him time to phone his ailing mother and his wife, and occasionally offer a lift home to a younger colleague.

The most mundane of activities—the daily commute—becomes a vessel for exploring all of life’s emotional ups and downs in this beautifully conceived marvel from David Easteal. Shattering the boundaries between documentary and fiction, The Plains reinvents the road movie to profoundly moving ends.