The film unfolds in brief episodes, detailing the travails of the working-class Pollock family, who live in a shabby flat in a tower block in London's East End. They are struggling to stay afloat during the recession under Prime Minister Premiership of Margaret Thatcher. Only the nagging, put-upon mother Mavis (Pam Ferris) is working; the bitter, feckless father Frank (Jeff Robert) and the couple's two sons Colin (Tim Roth), an extremely shy young man, and Mark (Phil Daniels), his outspoken, headstrong older brother, are on the Jobseeker's Allowance. Their aimless, querulous existence is contrasted with Mavis's sister Barbara (Marion Bailey) and her husband John (Alfred Molina), whose financial and social loftiness in suburban Chigwell serves as a comfortable facade for their lacklustre marriage.