A typical day in Brighton; two working-class couples are on a day trip to the beach. But Brighton is changing and the friends can’t keep up. A result is a vengeful act of violence that exposes the gaps and similarities between class, gender, and sexual orientations.

London, England, May 2000. The peaceful life of elderly Joan Stanley is suddenly disrupted when she is arrested by the British Intelligence Service and accused of providing information to communist Russia during the forties.