Award-winning screenwriter Richard Curtis combines his unique comedic touch with a powerful humanitarian message in his first film since Love Actually. The film stars Bill Nighy and Kelly MacDonald and follows the story of a very hard-working, shy civil servant Lawrence and his life-changing relationship with a mysterious girl who he meets in a café opposite Downing Street.
Lawrence (Bill Nighy) works for the Chancellor of the Exchequer and barely has time to lace his own shoes let alone conduct a relationship. Then he meets Gina (Kelly Macdonald), a pretty, instinctively reserved but highly enigmatic girl, in a London cafe. A friendship develops between the two, but both, consumed by years of loneliness are guarded.
Gina accompanies Lawrence to the G8 summit in Reykjavik where she surprises herself and shocks everyone else by challenging the conference's established agenda on global poverty. Lawrence is then forced to make an impossible decision - choose between the girl who has given him a new reason to live or the job he has devoted his life to. What will he decide and will the world leaders at the summit take notice of the girl from the cafe?