Julie Walters stars as a single mother seemingly haunted by a sinister telephone system that seems to have become an evil intelligence in its own right.
In stark black and white, Terence Davies excavates the life of his fictional alter ego, Robert Tucker, in a narrative that slips between childhood, middle age and death, shaping the raw materials of his own life into a rich tapestry of experiences and impressions.
When Denis Midgley's father is rushed to hospital, Midgley drops everything to be by his side. They've never really got on, so Midgley wants to be sure he's there if his father ever regains consciousness. As he hates his job as a schoolteacher, and his home-life with his wife, her senile mother and their insolent teenage son, he has no qualms about lingering around the hospital. But as days turn into weeks, his father obstinately refuses to 'slip away', and Denis' motivation for staying by his father's bedside has more and more to do with Valery, a young nurse.
Lee, a Chinese man, works as a waiter in a hotel in England, despite speaking very little English. Told that a girl called Iris might be interested in him, on his afternoon off work he buys a box of chocolates and sets off to find her.