在这部苦役剧情/喜剧片中,Mrs. Thornley (Liz Smith) leads a rather miserable existence in Salford. She lives with her husband, Jim (Clifford Kershaw), a night custodian at a toy factory, and their grown daughter, Ann (Polly Hemingway). Mrs. Thornley is a maid who works for an imperious upper-middle class woman, Mrs. Stone (Vanessa Harris). Between her work and her home life, it seems like Mrs. Thornley is always cooking, cleaning, and fielding complaints. Jim spends most of his spare time at the pub, and is pretty cold to his wife, drunkenly demanding sex from her once a week on the night he's not working. Jim's efforts to ingratiate himself to his supervisor, Mr. Shaw (Keith Washington), are met with a stony lecture about dressing properly on the job. Ann, meanwhile, has been spending her time trying to arrange an abortion for her friend Julie (Linda Beckett) with the help of a friendly Pakistani taxi driver, Naseem (an early turn by Ben Kingsley). The couple's son, Edward (Bernard Hill, who would later play Théoden in Lord of the Rings) seems to care about his mum, but his wife, Veronica (Alison Steadman, in the first of many performances for writer/director Mike Leigh), is a snob who constantly harangues him about his manners and looks down on his family. Mrs. Thornley, beaten down by her wearying existence, eventually seeks solace from a local priest.
Mrs. Thornley works very hard without notice or appreciation. Every day she keeps her own house clean, attends to her husband and unmarried daughter, Ann, then cleans other women's houses. She looks tired and has little affect. She does have a married son and a daughter-in-law who's chatty and pleasant. Mrs. Thornley's husband works nights, except for Saturdays, when he expects conjugal attention. Ann's worried about pregnancy and talks to her mum about labor and childbirth. Later, Mrs. Thornley goes to confession at her parish church, and she makes an extraordinary revelation.
