(Past Present Future) Imperfect (2004)

Family life is theatre and close relations usually find themselves playing very familiar roles at home. But what happens if one of the cast wants to change their lines? (Past Present Future) Imperfect is an emotional drama portraying the gradual stretching to breaking point of family ties over a single weekend. The Colvilles, a large catholic family, unexpectedly inherited a stately home 20 years previously. Since then EDWARD COLVILLE, the father, has set about rebuilding the house to its former landed glory. He is a lower middle class snob who lost a fortune in Lloyds. He's also a control freak who claims that everything he does is for the good of the family when it's actually for his own ends. He has successfully (to his mind) married off his daughters to local landowners, condemning them to unfulfilled, damaged lives. But he doesn't see this, thinking he has done them a favour. He is married to DIANA (whose family's home it is). She's in thrall to her husband. As a result she cannot see his faults and is prepared to sacrifice her children for him. She isn't bright, but has a way of exerting moral pressure on the family. She wouldn't know what to do with herself if her children left home. JULIANA and BEANIE are the damaged daughters. Juliana is married off to BOBBY who is in the middle of a nervous breakdown. Beanie to PHILIP, who is a feckless womaniser. MILLY, 24, the third daughter, is a little girl in a sex bomb's body. Intelligent, but terrifyingly naïve. ARCHIE is her twin. There is something very wrong with him, bordering on autistic. He's good looking, adding to the weirdness. The family ignore his oddness. Having lived with it for so long, it no longer affects them. But for outsiders he seems bizarre, dangerous. Into this dysfunctional family, that on the surface seems remarkably normal, come NATHAN, the youngest son, CHRISSIE, his black girlfriend and FATHER SIMON, a local catholic teacher. For Nath, coming home is an ordeal. He puts up with it because they're blood. But he has managed to escape from home for three years at university and the ties are weakening, opening his eyes to the reality of his family. However, Edward is determined to maintain his iron grip over the Colvilles - Nathan included - despite the gradual implosion of the relationships he has created for his daughters. Unbeknown to the others he has plans, with Father Simon, for the man-attracting Milly too. But in the outsider Chrissie, Edward sees all that is a danger to his plan. It is not her colour that threatens him but some memory she has stirred from years before. Chrissie must watch as Edward tries to bring Nath back into the fold, but will he be strong enough to resist, retain his independence and above all, keep his love for Chrissie?