The story of a mentally anguished high school history teacher going through a complete reassessment of his life. His method for reassessing his life is to narrate it to his class and interweave in it three generations of his family's history.

Jeremy Irons
as Tom Crick

Sinéad Cusack
as Mary Crick

Grant Warnock
as Young Tom

Lena Headey
as Young Mary

Callum Dixon
as Freddie Parr

Ethan Hawke
as Matthew Price

Pete Postlethwaite
as Henry Crick

Sean Maguire
as Peter

Ross McCall
as Terry

David Morrissey
as Dick Crick