The good-hearted Harbour has spent his whole life trying to take care of his motherless little brother, Wilbur, and rescue him from his numerous attempts at suicide. After their father dies, the two brothers, now in their thirties, inherit his second-hand bookshop in their native Glasgow. Harbour takes in Wilbur to live with him in the flat attached to the shop when Wilbur is turned out of his council estate home for the danger he poses to others (besides himself) with his use of the gas. Alice, a cleaning lady at the nearby hospital where Wilbur is undergoing group therapy, makes some extra money by selling the books that the patients leave behind. She and her little daughter Mary, who yearns for a home where the books don’t always get sold, enter into the brothers’ bookshop and lives one day – just in time to prevent Wilbur’s latest suicide attempt.

Harbour falls in love with Alice and marries her but idealistic young Mary has captured Wilbur’s heart, and just may help save his life. The life he wanted to end, was about to begin... But as Alice and Wilbur find themselves increasingly attracted to each other, Harbour reveals a secret which causes them all to examine the value of life.

In this most recent film by Lone Scherfig, the Danish director of the internationally successful Italian for Beginners, she bends the rules of the famous Dogme movement started by Lars von Trier, with which she was at first associated. It is difficult to predict whether this represents the opening of a new path for this talented director. We can only say that this very accomplished film cannot fail to move and even haunt us. Her directing of this fine ensemble drama lightens the story with gentle humour and a subtlety of touch which prevent it ever becoming maudlin.