The Paying Guests

It is 1922, and London is tense. Ex-servicemen are disillusioned; the out-of-work and the hungry are demanding change. And in the south of the city, on genteel Champion Hill, in a quiet home now empty of servants, life is about to be transformed. Widowed Mrs. Wray and her daughter, Frances - an unmarried woman with an interesting past, now on her way to becoming a spinster - find themselves obliged to take in tenants. The arrival of Lilian and Leonard Barber, a modern young couple of the emerging middle class, brings unsettling things with it: lively music, colorful clothing, open doors, and fun. As Lilian and Frances are drawn into an unexpected friendship, loyalties begin to shift. Secrets are confessed, dangerous desires admitted; the most ordinary of lives, it seems, can explode into passion and drama. And in the house on Champion Hill, no one can foresee just how far the disturbances will reach.