Elizabeth Estensen

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.

"Guilty," pleads Elizabeth, "in marriage, in parenthood, in every close relationship. I have failed!" But should we condemn her as she condemns herself?

When a teacher takes a group of troubled school children on a school trip to Conwy in Wales, the children understand life outside of Liverpool.

Robert Tucker, a young gay man who is almost without affect, sits in various waiting rooms. As he sits, he recalls events from the year of his childhood when his father dies. He's ten or eleven that year, picked on by bullies at the Catholic school he attends. He seems friendless. At home, his mother is quiet, his father is ill and angry. After his father's death, there's a wake, the coffin arrives, the body is removed. The lad grieves, alone.