Plot

The story concerns a hapless civil servant who gets more than he bargained for when he moves into an apartment with a gay fashion student and finds himself on the catwalk. The film sets out to explore the difficulties young people have in keeping their identities in a fast-moving culture of drugs and clubs.—Anonymous

Shane Butler (Michael Legge) happens to live in London. He is a civil servant looking for a room to stay in the city and to avoid the long trip commuting back and forth. All the rooms he sees are horrible, small and with the toilet in the middle of the living room, or too expensive. While waiting to see another rathole, he comes across Vincent Cusack (Allen Leech) three years his senior. One of the possible landladies is an old lady with a cat (Peggy Coyne), who scares Shane away.

The nice estate agent (Jennifer Barry) shows him a perfect place, but it's way out of his league in terms of rent, so she suggests that he shares the room with the other person interested in it. It happens to be Vincent.

Shane's mother (Angela Harding) helps him move - he's just got three rubbish-bag full of things. She gives Shane a St. Christopher medal to protect him, because she's a bit afraid of him leaving in the city centre. Outside the building of the condo where now he's leaving, Keith (David Murray) leaves and lurks around. The audience feels that he's not a clean character. In their room, Vincent has already occupied every possible available location with his stuff. Shane settles as best as he can in his room and starts drawing a castle landscape. Vincent leaves, and Shane tries to find some available space for his own toiletries in the bathroom to no avail - Vincent has taken up everywhere; and as he's left the flat without saying anything, he can't even complain to him.

Shane decides to go to a disco, but two bouncers (Jason Cahill, Robert Quigley and Cathall Costello) won't let him in just because - well, probably, just because of his boring, office worker look. Shane has to leave. Inside, Vincent is checking out a guy (Nigel Mercier) who's looking at him as well. They can't wait to arrive to the guy's apartment and make love.

Meanwhile, Shane wants to order at a fast-food place because he likes one of the sellers. Gemma (Amy Shields) laughs when her co-workers take her cap. Shane tries to strike a conversation with her, so some of the girls who are waiting in the queue behind him giggle like morons at the dialogue. Shane has to buy some chips he probably didn't even wanted, and leaves.

Shane arrives late for work... once again. His colleagues laugh at him. He tries to act non-chalantly, as though he had been working for hours, but he's reminded to clock in. All his colleagues give him his mugs so that he goes and makes coffee for everybody. Back to his condo, everything is neat, tidy, in order. Vincent jokes that if Shane doesn't like it, they could go back to how the flat looked like the day before. They talk about Vincent being at art school and knowing everyone. They reminiscence about the one time when Shane sat beside Vincent during his Christmas '98 examinations, and wrote in his paper that H2O was the chemical symbol for hydrogen dioxide. Shane also asks Vincent if he's say, and he answers he is. Shane adds that he isn't, to which Vincent says that everything says that Shane is not. They talk over a marijuana cigarette, and Vincent tells of Jimmy Doherty, the boy which was his first lover back in a school trip to Paris. Vincent adds that he's never slept with a woman. Vincent mentions that he has to prepare a fashion collection before he graduates, but that he hasn't even begun yet, and it's already late. Vincent daydreams of going to New York after graduation. Shane envies that Vincent has dreams and belongs to a community, the gay community.

Shane comes back to the Supermacs fast food place, but another attendant (Julie McEvoy) attends him. Disappointed, when he arrives to his flat, Gemma is there, as she's a good friend of Vincent, who introduce them - and Shane admits that he's already met her at the Supermacs. Gemma spent two years in the USA and then she's come back to live with her parents, but doesn't know for sure if she wants to go back to art school. To enter the conversation, Shane says that he's considering going to art school as well. Vincent says that Shane's really a civil servant working for the Department of Agriculture. Vincent takes Gemma to his bedroom to show her his designs for the fashion show. Shane overhears them talking about him, and Vincent says to Gemma that he's completely square, and that he already has a full-time job. Outraged, Shane goes for a walk in the night.

He stares at a bridge and the waters of the river reflect in his face. He calls Ma from a phone booth, and denies feeling lonely. A police officer is separating some drunk people. A bum asks him for a cigarette. He returns home and decides to take the St Christopher necklace from his neck. The thing gets tangled in a pipe box or something, and he finds a bag full of drugs. He takes them with him to his room.

The petty drug dealers, Keith and Budgie (Colm Coogan) think it must have been somebody from the building. Later, Shane puts the bag back in its again. Keith discovers him. As nothing has disappeared, Keith is nice to him and offers to buy him a pint. He acknowledges Anne (Maeve McGrath) and the barman (Micheál Ó'Dubhghaill) They go to a rock bar, and Shane smokes maria for the first time. Shane skins some more in the toilet. He also pukes and pukes. When he comes back to his new-found mates, Jerry complains that when they told him to skin it in the toilet, they didn't really mean IN the toilet. Vincent walks Shane out. Keith will give Shane 1,000 euros if he goes to Dublin for some hash. Shane refuses but immediately repents.

Vincent says that Gemma is going through a phase, but she might not be a lesbian after all. Shane tells Vincent not to go on bad-mouthing him in front of her. Vincent will change the way Shane looks by throwing all his clothes out.

One of Shane's co-workers, Jerry Brown (Frank Kelly), tells him that he never left his boring job because he was afraid of quitting a steady thing. In his time, to have a stable job in the civil service was everybody's dream, and his mother was over the moon about it. So Shane finds out the courage to go to the Limerick College of Art and Design. He picks the paperwork at Admissions, and stares at the part where the papers say that "students should budget an amount for fees and textbooks". So it's decided: he'll go to Dublin. During the train trip, he gets blocked when he has to explain in 200 words or less why he wants to study art.

The train arrives at Heuston Station in Dublin. He calls his contact from a phone booth. Bunny (Alvaro Lucchesi) gives him the drugs. Frankie (Sean Power) appears driving like a maniac, and mocks Shane saying that he looks like a fucking desperado. Shane can't touch anything within that cab, because it has been stolen, and having his fingerprints around would be dangerous for him. Shane thought it'd be only hash, but there were many different kinds of drugs in the bag. They drive him back to the station, and they have a car accident while smoking hash. A screaming woman (Karen Fitzgibbon) gets badly hurt, and when a man wants to call the police, Frankie and Bunny beat him up. Shane stares, horrified. Bunny and Frankie push him to the station. Keith gives the money to Shane, who doesn't even want to count him. Keith speculates that Shane is doing it all for the love of a girl, as he's not a criminal, or a junkie, and has a job.

There is somebody, a thug (Frank Dineen) watching the building of Keith and Shane.

At the same time, Vincent is going through a designer's block phase. Vincent inquires why Shane's look worried, - he told him that he had been home to see his family - and expresses lack of confidence in his own talent; he also inquires about the pencil sketches on the walls, and Shane says that his father was killed by a drunk driver, his mother took it hard, there was not much money around, and he passed the civil service exam... and that decided it. Shane shows Vincent the money and the form. Vincent tells him to save the money for school, as clothes are his department, and he's gonna change everything.

This time, when they go to the pub, the bouncers let Shane in without a hassle. After the disco, they organize a house-warming party on the spot, and all of Gemma's co-workers attend after work. At the party, Vincent refuses to acknowledge that he and Shane flirt with each other. Gemma smokes from Shane's joint. Shane stares at Gemma, but her co-worker (Niamh Foley) interrupts them, so she looks for Vincent and invites Shane for free chips for life. The co-worker and Shane have sex. As walls are thin, Gemma and Vincent can hear them moaning and laughing. Vincent jokes that finally the flat has been christened.

Keith and Jerry invite Shane over to a disco. Gemma and her female friend are there as well in full-party gear. Shane has a horrible hangover the following day, even when he didn't even realise that Gemma was in the same place as him. Vincent is using cheap models (Mary Jackman, Danielle Lawlor, Mary-Louise O'Callahan, Sharon McNeill, Alanna Littleg, Niamh Quinn) for rehearsals in his fashion show. When Vincent asks Gemma for a valium, she tells him to ask Shane, as "he's got all the connections".

Vincent freaks out and tells Shane off: he doesn't really know where he's putting himself into. Vincent leaves banging the door as Shane admits that there are drugs in their apartment at the moment.

It's Jerry's farewell party at the office. They all go to the pub for some pints after the farewell speech. At the pub, Jerry is kind of melancholic, as everything is celebrated with a pint of beer in Limerick: birth, marriages, deaths, engagements, retirements. When Shane goes to the toilet, he realises an only-ash fag in the ashtray, and looks for Jerry, who had stumbled into the floor. The ambulance takes Jerry away and Shane leaves all his distraught colleagues behind.

When he arrives to his apartment, Vincent won't even look at him, in spite of Gemma inquiring aloud "Is he OK?". Shane draws while crying. He burns the art school application form. Keith and his friend show Shane a flatliner, one of the pills Shane brought from Dublin. Shane hallucinates from the Dubliner lady in the car accident screaming. Keith protects Shane when he's about to get into a fight with a disco-goer before a bouncer (John Finn) intervenes. Gemma, who's dancing with Vincent, prevents him from intervening. Shane hallucinates they're laughing about him. Shane slaps Vincent and Gemma punches Shane. The bouncers take Shane out.

Shane kicks a skip and punches Keith who tries to stop him. Keith kicks Shane in the balls. Gemma offers support to Vincent while Keith has taken Shane to the apartment. Shane confides in Keith that he is scared that something terrible is going to happen if he doesn't do something. Keith recognises that Shane is not the only one who hides himself, and Keith admits that he's felt attracted to Shane since the first time he laid eyes on him, and now it's his opportunity - and starts undressing Shane. Keith starts kissing Shane, and Gemma finally dares to french kiss Vincent. It looks like both couples are going to have it going on, but they all stop. When Keith leaves, Shane tells him that he's not like him.

It's Jerry's funeral. He had never married or had kids, so only his colleagues attend.

Vincent finishes up his collection while Shane is about to burn all the drugs he's got. Two police officers in street clothes ran after Budgie and Keith and arrest them. Frankie and Bunny also fall.

Vincent and Shane won't speak to each other, so Shane starts mopping to room as an act of repentance. Vincent tells him to help him to sow, as the fashion show is the day after tomorrow. With Shane's help, the collection is finished in no time.

Vincent smokes a joint for the first time. They laugh that Shane loves Gemma, who's infantuated with Vincent, and Vincent himself doesn't have much success with men. Knocks on the door. Is it Keith? Or Gemma?

It's the police with a search warrant. Detective Black (Padraig Campbell) finds the remaining drugs and Vincent smoking a joint. Not only is the fashion show at stake now, because they won't hear the accusations until the next day, but also Vincent will lose his opportunity to go to New York, as they won't let him in if he has got any police records. They try to laugh everything off, thinking that when the going gets rough, the rough gets going

They are taking to the Inspector's office in the morning. Shane touches his St Christopher medal. When the Inspector enters, it's the lover who tore Vincent's shirt to pieces. First, Vincent says "hi" and smiles. Shane stares at him and the Inspector stays frozen. Then, he tells the police officers to leave for a second. Once alone, Vincent calls him "lover boy".

Next thing we can see Vincent and Shane leaving the police station, while Vincent cries out "There is god, there is god". It's noon, so he's got to run to the fashion show location, as he's missing rehearsals. Vincent convinces Shane of helping him backstage and of walking the catwalk with the rest of the models.

When Vincent graduates, Shane gives him an open-ticket to New York. Vincent wants to hug or kiss Shane but doesn't. He introduces Shane to his parents (Moira O'Dwyer & Niall Johnston) and he takes a photograph of them.

Shane quits, although his boss, Richard Walsh (Frank Coughlan), tries to convince him. He tells him that Jerry would have been proud of him.

Gemma and Shane see Vincent off at the airport. They look at each other and Shane offers to buy a drink for her.

Meanwhile, Vincent finds St Christopher medal in his pocket, but only until it is detected by an airport security guard (Randall Daly).

Shane hangs a drawing of Jerry in his wall. There are photos of Jerry and the boss, himself and Vincent.

He finally fills out the application form for the Limerick College of Art and Design. He says in 200 words or less that he's found his voice, and that he wants the institute to show him how to use it. He is seen drawing Gemma, naked, sleeping in bed, presumably after having made love to him.

End credits.

----written by KrystelClaire