Caroline Catz, Saskia Reeves

Ida's family is throwing her a birthday tea for her eighty-sixth birthday. Their efforts to be cheerful and make the event a success verge on the desperate. Ida is racked with pain and feels she has lived too long. As the painfully laboured celebrations go on, her third daughter Susan returns unexpectedly after an absence of 25 years. Tensions immediately flare between the sisters, whilst Ida struggles to recognise her.

As the party comes to an end, the family disperse leaving Katherine remembering the pact she made with Ida not to let her suffer into old age… When the family returns, old prejudices and rivalries are forced into the open in this hilarious, painful and moving picture of a family in turmoil.