A boy growing up in Swaziland in the 1960s is distraught when his mother leaves home for another man, driving his father to drink. After being packed off to boarding school, he returns to find his father has remarried. However, despite his initial resentment, he soon comes to regard his stepmother as a kindred spirit. Richard E Grant's semi-autobiographical coming-of-age drama, with Nicholas Hoult, Emily Watson, Gabriel Byrne and Miranda Richardson.

Set at the end of the 1960s, as Swaziland is about to receive independence from United Kingdom, the film follows the young Ralph Compton, at 12, through his parents' traumatic separation, till he's 14.