Eddie is a principled man, with a wife, a daughter and a mortgage and leads a seemingly stable and happy life as a government land assessor. Yet when the forces of economic and social change threaten this, he realises just how fragile his reality and security is. After losing his job, he checks his bank balance and finds he has only 'three dollars' to his name.
Acting
David Wenham's crumbling dignity in every scene
Direction
Connolly's unflinching Melbourne suburbia as purgatory
Writing
The childhood flashback structure that haunts the present
Director
Robert Connolly
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Released during Australia's 'working poor' crisis of the 2000s, the film captures a specific moment when home ownership became mythic for ordinary Australians.
The title's $3 references both Eddie's literal bank balance and a childhood memory of shared poverty, binding his adult failure to his origins with Gerard. The Hamlet allusions aren't pretentious—they're Eddie's own self-mythologizing as he paralyzes himself with inaction.
AU
