Adrenaline is rushing through the Green household in London as the family prepares for 13-year-old son Eliot's ritual passage from boy to man. There is heightened tension between taxi driver dad Victor and Valium-soothed mum Rita, and suddenly Eliot is not sure if he wants his bar mitzvah ceremony to go ahead.

On the day, he runs away from the synagogue in the middle of proceedings, eventually confiding that if the men in his family (including sister Lesley's soppy, domesticated boyfriend, Harold) are supposed to be his role models, then he doesn't want to be a man after all.

Seeking solace in a playground, Eliot proves he has not forgotten his ceremonial lines, which the rabbi declares to be good enough for him - so the boy is bar mitzvahed after all.