A moment of stillness -- that's what "2:37" chooses for its opening shot, the camera pointed skyward, a canopy of green leaves framed against the gray sky beyond. It doesn't last long. Soon the camera moves earthward, and we enter an Australian high school where the calm is soon shattered when a student finds a pool of blood seeping from under a locked bathroom door.
Is it murder? Suicide? Worse? There are no clues as the film immediately leaps back in time to early morning of the same day. We're shown a number of teens as they prepare to head off to school. None of them seem right: Melody (Teresa Palmer) lies on the floor of her bedroom, weeping uncontrollably, while her brother Marcus (Frank Sweet) yells that they'll be late for school, seemingly undisturbed by her breakdown. Luke (Sam Harris), who we will soon learn is a rather full-of-himself jock and bully, yanks off to some Internet porn.
At the school we meet Stephen (Charles Baird), a four-eyed geek with bladder problems that make him the subject of cruel bullying by Luke and his fellow jocks. Ditto for Sean (Joel Mackenzie), an alienated gay stoner with an intensely negative attitude. "People are scared of dying," he says. "I'm not."