Academy Award winning animation Harvie Krumpet is the biography of an ordinary man.

Brought up in a Polish forest with his father (a lumberjack), and mother (suffering from lead poison), Harvie is a person seemingly cursed with bad luck. Born with Tourette's Syndrome, Harvie is marginalised from the rest of the village and gets used to having stones thrown at him as a child.

At the age of 18 his parents are found frozen to death on their bicycles, just as the Germans invade, forcing Harvie to flee to Australia where he works in a rubbish dump. Bad luck follows him to Australia where he goes in and out of hospital on a regular basis: from being struck by lightning to having his testicle removed, his misfortune seems unending.

He does, however, find love when Nurse Valerie Burstall walks into his ward. They get married and move into Val's flat with her two cats and diseased parrot. They adopt a little girl called Ruby (when Harvie is diagnosed sterile), and many happy years follow.

On Harvie's 65th birthday, Val suddenly dies, leaving Harvie alone in life again. He quickly ages, is diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease and is shifted into a nursing home after a neighbour finds him trying to withdraw cash from the microwave. Instead of withering away, Harvie finds rejuvenation and excitement with a fellow Alzheimer's patient, Hamish McGrumbel. Together they entertain the other residents with their mischievous acts: getting drunk, practical jokes, escaping from the home and naked puppet shows.

Despite these high jinks, Harvie's condition worsens and he falls in and out of hallucinations and depression, almost opting for suicide before being saved by a very special woman who enters his life and steers him to a new realization about life.