The cast includes Harry Styles, David Dawson and Emma Corrin as the younger versions of Tom, Patrick and Marion. Also cast as the older versions of Tom, Patrick and Marion are Linus Roache, Rupert Everett and Gina McKee.
The story is set in the 1990s, with a retired couple, Tom and Marion Burges, living in Brighton when a former friend, Patrick Hazelwood, is brought back into their lives after suffering a stroke, while Marion attempts to care for him, Tom refuses to even look at Patrick. Marion remembers the past through Patrick's diary from the 1950s. In those years, Patrick (Dawson), a museum worker, met Tom (Styles) and began a secret, passionate relationship, knowing that the time was dangerous to be gay. Tom starts a relationship with Marion, a schoolteacher and childhood friend. She gets on with Patrick, and they begin a love triangle with Tom marrying Marion. However, fate destroys the trio's relationship with Patrick being arrested for being gay and Tom losing his job after being exposed as Patrick's lover.
This movie provides examples of:
- The '90s: The present day is set in the 1990s.
- All for Nothing: Marion exposes Tom and Patrick's relationship to win Tom back. As a result, Patrick is sent to jail and Tom loses his job because of the diary that Patrick kept detailing their time together. Marion ends up spending 40 years married to someone who never loved her. Eventually, she comes to terms with her guilt and admits it to Tom, which allows him to love Patrick again.
- The Beard: Tom marries Marion to present himself as a conventional heterosexual and boosts his career as his boss tells him that unmarried officers don't get promotions.
- Butt-Monkey: In jail, Patrick is regularly beaten by the other inmates while the officers ignore him, probably the reason he has health problems in the present day.
- Didn't Think This Through: Marion's betrayal of Patrick ruined Tom's life, too. Tom got fired when his department figured out the connection, even though his name wasn't mentioned in Patrick's diary. She also loses the passionate man she married, like she tells Patrick at visiting time, "Nobody's won".
- Flashback: Marion finds Patrick's diary, which sets off the flashback.
- Gaslighting: After Marion discovers the truth and confronts Tom about his trip to Venice, he claims it's only business.
- I Hate Past Me: Tom wants nothing to do with Patrick in the present day, as it means acknowledging the love he tried to hide.
- Longing Look: Tom, in the present, sees an openly gay couple happily going about their day, and Tom goes to his car to cry, wishing to be open like them.
- The older Patrick only wants Tom to look at him, but the older man cannot.
- Maybe Ever After: Marion, after confessing her role in their downfall, leaves Tom so he can be with Patrick, whose health might recover with Tom's love.
- Oh, Crap!: When Tom sees Patrick is being brought in for questioning, he recovers, but he knows this is it and possibly he might be arrested as well. When he comes home and tells Marion, she also realises it and tries to help Patrick by testifying.
- Older and Wiser: Marion, in the present day, is no longer homophobic and gets on with gay people.
- The Speechless: Patrick, in the present, has suffered a nasty stroke which left him unable to speak.
- The Stoic: Tom, after being fired, burns his uniform, and after promising Marion that he will never talk about Patrick again, he becomes this fragment of himself which Marion, in her confession, admits she never wanted him to be, she still wanted to go to museums with him, but he refused.
- Took a Level in Jerkass: When Marion realises that Tom and Patrick are lovers, she shows her homophobic nature, which results in Julia, her fellow teacher and friend, coming out as well before ending their friendship, then when she gets the postcard from the pair in Venice she betrays Patrick by writing the letter to the museum.
