Take a razor-sharp wit and a subtle intelligence, add two famous air disasters, a mental institution and a new-born family - and you have an irresistible tragicomedy of everyday life.
'Descent' charts the trajectory of a woman's life and a couple's relationship during the last decade of the 20th century. Framed by the Lockerbie air disaster and the attack on the Twin Towers, it's the story of Genevieve O'Dowd, a strangely unaware psychiatric nurse, a wife, mother, daughter, who's trying to keep a whole lot of stuff airborne while things fall apart, inside and out.
Her husband Mark is a filmmaker, usually absent, on small-budget art films in out of the way places. But as his career takes off, and star-vehicle big-budget movies beckon, Genevieve's life stalls on babies, breastfeeding and builders. This is her narrative, addressed to him, trying to make sense of their lives and the forces that pull them apart. Her work, which drives her nuts but keeps her sane, her anarchic friend and colleague Sid, and the sad, crazed women in their charge provide a hilarious, heartbreaking backdrop to a world going off the rails.
