Small Pleasures

London's southeast suburbs in 1957.

Having experienced a lack of success in love, Jean Swinney, a feature writer for a local newspaper, is approaching forty years old and leads a restricted life with her irascible mother.

It is up to Jean to determine if Gretchen Tilbury, a young Swiss lady who approaches the paper claiming her daughter is a virgin, is a scam or a miracle. However, the more Jean looks into it, the more her life and the Tilburys' become strangely—and not unpleasantly—entwined; Margaret, Gretchen's endearing and eccentric daughter, is becoming a kind of surrogate kid. Jean doesn't want to fall in love with Gretchen's husband, Howard, but when she does, it's because of his generosity, intellect, and dry humour that win her over.

However, he is wed to her friend, who is also the focus of the story she is investigating for the newspaper and which seems to be having an increasingly negative impact on both of their lives. And yet, Jean finds it impossible to pass up the opportunity to experience pleasure at last...

However, there will be an intolerable cost involved.