When their beloved mother dies from a brain tumour, Iris and her sister Rose, who is pregnant, are devastated. In a cinema, Iris picks up a stranger, Tom, and has sex with him. She quits her job and moves out of her boyfriend Gary's home into a bedsit. Her best friend Vron gets her a job at a lost-property office. At a club, Iris picks up a man whom she takes back to her place for sex.

Iris asks her sister to give her their mother's ring, but Rose says that she can't find it. After she picks up the ashes from the crematorium, Iris dreams about her mother. Tom and Iris sleep together again, but he leaves quickly, evading her questions. Vron begins to disapprove of Iris' promiscuity. When Rose visits Iris to ask about the ashes, Iris claims to have lost them and the sisters argue. Iris picks up a man in the street and they have rough sex. Afterwards, Iris is upset and tries to contact Tom, but he fails to ring her back. She goes to see the man from the street, who blindfolds her and then urinates on her.

One night, Iris' bag is snatched. She tries to contact Rose, but is told by her husband Frank that she is about to catch a train to London. At the station, Iris asks her sister for money and becomes violently angry when she sees that Rose is wearing their mother's ring. She goes to see Gary and finds him with Vron. Turning up drunk at Rose's house, she tries to seduce Frank but he refuses. Iris wanders the streets in a daze and collapses in the gutter. The next day, Rose comes to see her and apologises for lying about the ring; Iris confesses that she had the ashes all along. The sisters are reconciled. Later, Iris begins the singing career she had always wanted.

Sight and Sound