Bruce Landry (Thomas Haden Church), a snowplow driver living in a small town in Quebec, accidentally hits and kills Paul Blackburn (Marc Labrèche) while drunkenly driving his snowplow in a snowstorm. Rather than face the consequences, Bruce flees into the Canadian wilderness in the snowplow. As he hides in the snowplow and steals to survive, a series of flashbacks show his friendship with Paul.
Whitewash contains examples of:
- Car Meets House: Six months ago, Bruce drunkenly crashed his snowplow into a Chicken King, resulting in him losing his license for three years. By the time he meets Paul, he's broke.
- Character Narrator: Bruce narrates his inner monologue.
- Disposing of a Body: Bruce buries Paul's body in a snowdrift before he takes off. Later he returns, digs him up, takes him out over a lake, breaks the ice, and dumps him in.
- Interrupted Suicide: Bruce and Paul meet when Bruce finds Paul sitting in his car, with a hose leading from the exhaust pipe to the window. Bruce pulls the hose out and tries to strike up a conversation with Paul, who is angry and wants to be left alone.
- Lives in a Van: Bruce turns the snowplow into a home, stealing insulation to make it warmer and turning part of it into a grill for food.
- Papa Wolf: A young girl finds Bruce hiding in the shed of her family's vacation home. He grabs her arm and tells her not to be afraid, which only scares her. Her father follows Bruce into the woods and says, "Listen, man, I don't know who you are, but if you ever go near my kid again, man, you're gonna fuckin' regret it. Do you understand that?"
- The Peeping Tom: While hiding in the shed, Bruce watches the wife, who is wearing a towel in front of the bathroom window, and masturbates.
- Soft Glass: Bruce breaks a garage's windows with his elbows so he can break in and steal a snowmobile.
- Special Thanks: A long list of people and organizations, along with "A very special thank you to KIM NGUYEN for inspiring us with his crazy ideas" and "...and all the extras who played in the film."
- Suicide by Cop: How Paul died. He stole some of Bruce's eyeballs and ran out of the house, causing Bruce to chase him in the snowplow he isn't supposed to drive. The he stops in the middle of the road. Because of the bad visibility, Bruce can't brake on time, and Paul is killed.
- Tragic Keepsake: Bruce's wife, who died of cancer, used to make doll eyes for a living. Bruce now has boxes and boxes of eyeballs around the house. Paul suggests that he sell them online for $10 apiece, but Bruce doesn't want to part with them.
