How well do married couples know each other? A bittersweet comedy about love, ageing and infidelity.
Maggie would have said she was contented, if not happy, in her marriage, but she had not reckoned on her geriatric pop philosopher husband, Colin, having a reckless affair. When she discovers text messages from his lover, she takes his credit card from his wallet and sets off into the night from their affluent home in Twickenham, embarking on a spontaneous odyssey across Europe. As she visits their old haunts, she broods on her sense of betrayal and loss. But Maggie's libido is not as exhausted as she thought, and she discovers that she too is susceptible to the seductive allure of a late-life dalliance.
Returning home, she insists on Colin moving out. A year of separation rekindles a libidinal passion between them, shot through with Maggie's rage and Colin's fumbling attempts at reconciliation. Then lockdown forces them back together.
These are Maggie's reminiscences as she prepares for Colin's 71st birthday during lockdown. Recalling the dramas of the last year, she is still unsure if she wants to stay in their marriage. In a day zinging with tension, she does her best to play the good wife, planning a Zoom party with the family, gossiping on the phone with her best friend Barbara, speaking to her mother who has dementia and is in a nursing home, planning a special birthday dinner a deux, and trying to suppress the irritation and guilt-tripping jibes at Colin that threaten to derail all her efforts. Then a surprise revelation from him jolts her into a new reality, and she realises she hardly knows the man she has been with for nearly all her adult life. But then, Colin doesn't really know her either. How well do couples ever know each other?
A tender, comic romance about the pathos and bathos of marriage, mortality, and the ageing process.
