When 55-year-old Frank Redmond (Mullan) loses his job in Glasgow during a cutback and must look for work he becomes depressed and feels unvalued. What can he do to retrieve his self-respect? Frank decides on a daring step—to swim the English channel. His wife Joan, determined to help out economically, is determined to get a job as a bus driver. Neither tells the other about these plans at first. Frank has another issue gnawing at him, the earlier death of a child, for which he has blamed himself, an event which has damaged the relationship between him and another son, now grown and resentful.

Such is the basic set-up, and while a happy ending is predictable, getting there is where the movie-going pleasure lies. The performances are all superb, the Glasgow ambiance the director manages to convey adds an effective reality and there is much humor in the relationship between Frank and his assorted cronies.

We get a fleshed-out picture of what life is like in this environment, including racism against a Chan (Benedict Wong), a fish and chips shop owner, who is encouraged to stand up for himself by Frank’s example, just as others get to feel better about themselves.

Frank is tight-lipped and self-contained, which sets a tone for the film, and that in turn produces all the more emotion around the enterprise of swimming the channel, with its necessary support group and the physical challenge involved and the family relationships being tested at the same time.