At some point in our lives, almost everyone has an impulse to get away from our predictable routines and responsibilities and start over somewhere else. Danny Deckchair explores this premise with some interesting twists. Writer and director Jeff Balsmeyer is the creative force behind this Australian comedy.
Danny Morgan (Rhys Ifans) works on a construction job and lives with his girlfriend Trudy (Justine Clarke), who yearns for a more affluent lifestyle. He's a very laid-back kind of guy who loves to hang out with his coworkers and who can’t wait to camp out in the wilderness on an upcoming vacation with Trudy. However, she is trying to close a real estate deal with Sandy Upman (Rhys Muldoon), a popular TV sports reporter. She forces Danny to postpone the vacation, and he gets very angry. He is even more teed off when he spots Trudy in a car with Upman.
Danny, who has a hard time expressing his emotions, comes up with a clever way to convey his feelings of betrayal. It is clear to him that Trudy sees him as a loser who will never be able to give her what she wants. So at a barbecue at his home with friends and neighbors, Danny and his buddies fill balloons with helium and then attach them to a deckchair. When he sits down on his humble throne, the chair lifts off, and he goes up into the sky with everyone watching in amazement. He passes over his hometown of Sydney and disappears into a passing thunderstorm. Luckily, Danny crash lands in Clarence, a small community hundreds of miles north. Glenda (Miranda Otto), a parking policewoman, is sitting in her backyard when he lands in a nearby tree. When her boss, Sergeant Dave (Frank Magree), who has a crush on her, arrives to see what all the commotion is about, she introduces the stranger as a professor from her university days.
Disdained by his girlfriend back home, Danny finds himself someone very special in this friendly town. He takes quite a shine to the independent-minded Glenda, and they wow everyone at a dance. Danny draws closer to this down-to-earth woman by fixing her old motorcycle that has sentimental value. Realizing that he has to do some work, he becomes the campaign manager for a local who is running for mayor. When this hedonist doesn’t show up for a speech, Danny has to fill in, and he speaks from his heart about the fact that the little people of the town should never undersell themselves since they are what make things happen by just doing their ordinary jobs. Of course, his working-class experience shines through to each and every person in the audience.
Meanwhile, back in Sydney, Danny's balloon ride and mysterious disappearance have made Trudy into a celebrity and given Upman a crack at more respectability as a reporter. When they finally catch up with Danny, he has to decide which life of his he wants — the old one or the new one.
