Alex is a well-meaning but rather pretentious fledgling cinema manager, who is determined to bring highbrow films to his local town.

He is struggling to drum up excitement for a Swedish art-house film. Unfortunately, neither the public nor the staff appear the slightest bit interested in the film.

Alex is opposed by his surly projectionist, Neil, who would rather be doing anything other than sitting in a small projection room, and receives no help from his assistant Katie either, a cynical teenager more concerned with eating all the popcorn.

Alex also has to contend the amorous advances of Jane, a former arsonist who owns the cafe next door, and the drunken ramblings of the cinema's elderly owner Mrs Duke.

Alex has been roped into writing the memoirs of Mrs Duke, who is a ninety-something former actress with an appetite for whisky and an even bigger appetite for long, obscure stories about the Hollywood stars of yesteryear.