Roger Crumpkin is an accident-prone young man who works as a maintenance fitter at the Big Egg Factory, a sprawling complex that bears an uncanny resemblance to the Sydney Opera House. One night, after a night out at a club with his friend Lyndon, a bartender passes him a cigarette, and Roger’s life takes a sharp turn as he falls prey to a nicotine addiction that promises nothing but trouble. He lives in an upper-level apartment in a towering complex called “The Future,” with a view that overlooks the iconic Sydney Harbour Bridge, a setting that frames his misadventures against the city’s sparkling backdrop.
There, Roger reunites with Sunday Valentine, a chicken sexer from the egg company who previously wandered into his world in a case of mistaken address when she read her keytag upside-down. On the roof, where she uses a Hills hoist as an improvised observatory to search for extraterrestrial intelligence, a strange chemistry blossoms between them, a quiet spark that quickly becomes a genuine connection amid the chaos of Roger’s life. Their budding romance is tested by a string of comic yet perilous mishaps born from Roger’s flawed but endearing impulse control.
After a string of unfortunate accidents, Roger drives straight through a barrier and tumbles into a deep excavation. He and Lyndon crawl from the wreckage and uncover something buried in an ancient stratum: a metal object resembling a hubcap from a Volkswagen Beetle. Back in his apartment, the discovery reveals properties far beyond ordinary metal. It is indestructible to dents and has a peculiar ability to absorb heat without getting hot. The object becomes a symbol of possibility but also a source of escalating tension in Roger’s life.
On rubbish collection day, Roger’s clumsy misfortune triggers a dramatic sequence as bins line the stairwells on every level. He trips, and an avalanche of garbage roars downward to the ground floor, knocking him through a window. His fall is broken by repeated impacts on the way down, allowing him to survive, only to be buried under a cascade of refuse that pours out of the entrance. He returns to Sunday with the hubcap, insisting it belongs to a mother ship that crashed long ago, and she reluctantly considers the possibility of something otherworldly at work.
They return to the excavation with a metal detector, hoping to uncover more evidence. Beneath the dirt, a second large metal object is revealed, and when they pull it free, all they find is a plain car—the very same VW Beetle that the hubcap evokes. Sunday’s faith wavers, challenging Roger’s conviction about the artifact’s origin. To reignite trust, Roger invites Sunday to dine at Mummies, an upscale Egyptian-themed restaurant. A string of mishaps punctuates their evening, and after a comic sequence of accidents, they part ways again, a small rift forming between them. An ill-timed spray of sump oil only worsens the mood, and Sunday storms off, leaving Roger to reflect on his choices.
Enter the power-hungry boss, Duxton Chevalier, who harbors a fixation on Sunday and remains oblivious to Roger’s involvement in the hubcap mystery. A cigarette shared between them becomes a fleeting moment that underscores Duxton’s manipulative hold over the situation. Roger’s cravings for nicotine drive an odd, darkly comic twist: his appetite is sated not by cigarettes but by boiled eggs, a macabre turn that leads to the accidental death of Barry the goldfish.
Back at the egg factory, Duxton reveals his cynical plan: flood the market with nicotine-laced eggs and claim control of the business by outmaneuvering his better-hearted brother Kelvin Chevalier, who was trapped in a fridge and crushed. The revelation intensifies the chase as Duxton forces Roger and Lyndon into a two-door fridge destined for the recycling plant. They manage a narrow escape, fleeing toward freedom as Duxton speeds away with Sunday, leaving Roger to mount a desperate pursuit.
The pursuit culminates in a perilous confrontation back at their apartment. Duxton confronts them in a final bid to trap them in a fridge, but Roger improvises a defense while Sunday, briefly captured, becomes a pivot around which the climax turns. A loyal Jack Russell Terrier named Audrey saves the day by catching the cable, allowing Roger to pull Sunday to safety just as Duxton tumbles to a fatal end. With Duxton defeated, Sunday considers leaving Sydney, yet Roger’s gesture—replacing and repairing her music box—helps heal their rift and redraws the map of their relationship.
In a final, almost cosmic coda, the hubcap—having served as a dog’s dish—lifts from the window and, somewhere in space, reattaches to the landing gear of a distant UFO. The craft retracts its undercarriage and quietly slips away, leaving Roger and Sunday with a renewed sense of possibility and a city’s worth of questions about fate, luck, and the odd, inexorable pull of the unknown.
