Charlie Bucktin Levi Miller is a quiet, book-loving 13-year-old in the rural Western Australian town of Corrigan. On a blistering summer evening in 1965, 14-year-old Jasper Jones Aaron L. McGrath, an outsider because of his Aboriginal heritage and rebellious streak, asks for help and leads Charlie to a private clearing in the bush. There, Charlie discovers the beaten body of Laura Wishart Nandalie Campbell Killick, Laura’s friend, suspended from a tree. The traces on Laura’s body hint at a sexual assault that Charlie cannot fully name, and Jasper—fearing how the town will blame him—convinces Charlie to hide the corpse to buy time to uncover the truth. They haul Laura into a nearby dam and weight her with a rock, setting in motion a dangerous game of secrets in Corrigan.
A search for Laura soon grips the town. The authorities treat her disappearance as a runaway, while Jasper endures brutal police questioning before being released. Tensions rise as worried parents fear more disappearances and the town searches for someone to blame. Charlie spends his days with his best friend Jeffrey Lu Kevin Long, a Vietnamese boy who endures everyday racism and yet shares Charlie’s love of wordplay and jokes. Jeffrey’s cricket prowess becomes a bright point in an atmosphere of prejudice, and a pivotal game against a neighboring town sees him bat triumphantly on the last ball, watched by Charlie and Eliza Wishart Angourie Rice, Laura’s younger sister. That moment nudges Charlie and Eliza from friendship toward something warmer and more intimate, marking the beginning of a fragile romance.
Meanwhile, Jasper grows convinced that Mad Jack Lionel Hugo Weaving is Laura’s killer. He and Charlie confront Lionel, who—despite his reputation for darkness—calmly defuses the confrontation and reveals a painful past: he is Jasper’s grandfather, and a car crash he caused while Laura’s mother was being rushed to the hospital left Lionel broken and ostracized by Corrigan. The truth unsettles Jasper further, and a late-night encounter with Eliza adds another layer of danger to their investigations.
That night, Eliza climbs to Charlie’s window and persuades him to join her on a moonlit walk. They stumble upon a lone car by the river: Charlie’s mother is in a compromising situation with a town policeman and Jasper’s bully. Eliza guides Charlie away and leads him to the clearing, where she unravels Laura’s death: after suffering sexual abuse at home, Laura came looking for Jasper, Eliza followed, and finding Jasper elsewhere, Laura killed herself by hanging. Hearing Eliza’s account, Charlie finally confesses that he and Jasper put Laura’s body in the dam and have been trying to prove Jasper’s innocence. Jasper confronts the pair, and the three spend the night under the stars, their grief binding them together.
The next day, Eliza, Jasper, and Charlie each go their separate ways. Charlie faces the unraveling of his family—their separation becoming real as his mother leaves—while his father completes the novel he has been writing, a work Charlie reads and cherishes as a sign of growth and possibility. In Corrigan’s eyes, Charlie earns a reputation for bravery when he sneaks onto Mad Jack Lionel’s property to steal peaches and stages a faux brawl with Lionel to impress his peers, including Warwick Trent Wilson Moore, Corrigan’s notorious bully who buys into the ruse. But as the celebration swells, a plume of smoke appears on the horizon.
Charlie races toward the smoke and discovers Eliza’s house ablaze. He finds her standing by the fire, calm and poised, and realises that she may have been the firestarter—an act that could doom Jasper in the eyes of Corrigan. Eliza remains aloof as Charlie approaches, and she shares the truth of Laura’s death in a moment that unsettles him to his core. The situation forces Charlie to confront the uncomfortable reality that the town may turn its anger toward Jasper, not the perpetrator.
In the heat of the crisis, Eliza whispers something that lingers long after the flames:
> "perfect words"
