A 17-year-old is on house arrest for the summer while his mother is away on business. A horrifying incident occurs leaving an ominous presence in the house.

Based on the real-life scandal that shocked Victorian-era England, the film tells the story of Euphemia "Effie" Gray. At 19, she married the prominent art historian and critic John Ruskin, but Ruskin refused to consummate their marriage. Lonely and frustrated Effie is drawn to pre-Raphaelite painter John Everett Millais, and finds a friend and champion in Lady Elizabeth Eastlake. After five years trapped in a loveless marriage, Effie will defy the rules of Victorian society...

Lonely, ageing bachelor Mr Hoppy lives in a London flat and has two loves in his life - his balcony garden and Mrs Silver, the widow in the flat below. Sadly Mrs Silver is too fond of her tortoise Alfie to respond . Noting that Mrs Silver is perturbed that Alfie never seems to grow Mr Hoppy hatches a plan to show her how much he cares. This involves buying dozens of tortoises of increasing sizes to gradually substitute for Alfire, leading Mrs Silver to believe that a Bedouin chant - Esio Trot - is making her pet grow. However he is rumbled when one of the tortoises escapes. And, with another, brash resident vying for Mrs Silver's affections, will Mr Hoppy find happiness with the woman he loves?

The story follows a young rickshaw-puller in Bhopal who gets a menial job at a chemical plant, but in December of 1984 a chemical spill in India takes the lives of almost 15,000 people and injuring more than 100,000. The film follows how the industrial disaster in the city changes his life and those of others.