Details

Release year: 2005

Storyline

It charts the breakdown of a working class family when the teenage daughter befriends a refugee girl. Helen has been married to Paul for 25 years. They live a monotonous and frozen existence. Helen is desperate, damaged, and looking for change. Paul - bitter, hypocritical and bigoted, sick and tired of being in the poverty trap - is on the brink of a breakdown. His biggest fear is change. Into their lives comes Tasha, a Romany Czech refugee, awaiting her British passport and her chance for freedom - a concept taken for granted by all those around her. Told in three revelatory narratives, each from a particular character's point of view, reveals how the disintegration of an ordinary working class family finally comes to a head when unexpected emotions are unleashed.

Top credits

Directors

Jan Dunn

Writers

Jan Dunn

Cast

Pauline McLynn — Helen
Chloe Sirene — Tasha
Paul McGann — Paul
Rula Lenska — Irina

See all 34 credits →

Did you know

• First British feature to be registered as Dogme film.

• Won the Jury prize at the San Francisco film festival (2005) i.e. Levi's(r) First Feature Award

• There was no script - all the dialogue in the film was improvised. The only guides were basic Contrary to some press, there was an entirely structured screenplay, with dialogue written in a prose format style under the writer/director who wanted to achieve spontaneous dialogue in the rehearsal process.

See all trivia →