Gordon Comstock is a successful copywriter at a flourishing advertising firm in 1930s London. His girlfriend and co-worker, Rosemary, fears he may never settle down with her when he suddenly disavows his middle-class lifestyle and quits his paying job for the artistic satisfaction of writing poetry. Gordon's friend and publisher Ravelston, a wealthy self-described socialist, arranges a job at a bookstore and a room in a boardinghouse for him, but Gordon seethes about the bourgeoisie values of his landlady Mrs. Wisbech and the shop's customers. He is also resentful of his romantic relationship with Rosemary remaining
abstinent. With Gordon making no progress on writing poetry, he and Rosemary take a day trip to the countryside. They become intimate in the woods, but Rosemary stops it because Gordon has not brought
contraceptives. Gordon returns to his room to find a letter from a literary magazine in California that has accepted his poems for publication and sent him a check for $50 (equivalent to $1,165 in 2025). Elated, Gordon invites Rosemary and Ravelston to dinner at an expensive restaurant, where he becomes drunk and disorderly and ends up spending all his money at a pub, passing out, and being arrested and fined. The details of his arrest are printed in the paper, and he loses his job and his accommodations. Feeling sorry for himself, Gordon picks a fight with Rosemary, and she breaks up with him. Ravelston pays Gordon's fine and finds him another job at a bookstore and lending library in
Lambeth. Though his pay is much lower and his rented room squalid, Gordon is delighted in his new bohemian lifestyle. Rosemary's boss is desperate for Gordon to return, so she goes to visit him. He professes his love of his new situation, but is stricken when Rosemary correctly intuits that he is still not writing any poetry. They reconcile and have sex for the first time. Some time later, Rosemary, who has been promoted at work, visits Gordon and tells him that she is pregnant. Gordon is presented with the choice between leaving Rosemary to a life of social shame or marrying her and returning to a life of respectability by taking back the job at the New Albion agency that he once so deplored. After viewing medical texts about the development of the child during pregnancy, Gordon is moved to provide for Rosemary and their baby. He discards his in-progress poetry and returns to his old job, where he plagiarizes the work of famous poets for an advertising campaign that is a great success. Gordon and Rosemary marry, buy a home together, and decide to embrace middle-class life. ==Cast==