Glorious

In present-day London, Michael Walton visits his older cousins Walter and Oliver Page to learn about his great-aunt Anne Keyes. He asks for stories about Anne’s fate and what happened to her. This conversation sets the frame for the family mystery that unfolds in flashback.

Walter starts to reminisce about the summer of 1939 at the Keyes estate in Norfolk, introducing the key players and the tense political mood. He explains how Anne, Hector, Balcombe, and Lawrence move through a circle of secrets. Michael realizes the tale stretches back decades.

On Sir Alexander's birthday, Anne hosts a table in the garden while Hector, Lawrence, and Balcombe attend. The elder politicians and family dynamics are on display, foreshadowing the conflicts to come. Sir Alexander and Maud's household seems ordinary on the surface, but it hides deeper agendas.

Anne discovers gramophone records in a shed that reveal meetings and telephone conversations. The records imply Balcombe has been storing sensitive government documents there. The revelation marks a turning point in her understanding of the family's secrets.

Two weeks after the discovery, Hector is found dead from an apparent suicide. Anne wonders if Balcombe was involved and discusses it with Sir Alexander. The mystery deepens as suspicions fall on those close to the records.

During a family walk, baby Oliver goes missing from his pushchair. Anne searches the lane and suspects her nephew Walter, but the truth remains unclear. Balcombe helps with the search but suspicions persist about who is telling the truth.

Balcombe removes the exposed records that night, but Anne secretly keeps two of them. The act plants seeds of resistance and danger as the power of the recordings grows in the family’s hands. The cover-up only adds to Anne's paranoia and resolve.

Anne listens to one recording where Hector pleads with Balcombe to stop contacting his parents about his personal life. A maid bursts in, causing the gramophone to fall and the record to break. The break amplifies the sense of danger surrounding the secrets.

On 1 September, Britain declares war on Germany. Anne gives the second recording to her friend Gilbert, who follows politics closely. The next day, Gilbert is found dead from an apparent suicide, intensifying the film’s mystery.

While watching a final scene, Anne realizes a supposed on-set flub—where a line changes from 'You should listen to me, Jenny' to 'You should listen to it again, Anne'—was really a message meant for her. The realization confirms that someone was guiding events behind the scenes. The idea of being watched unsettles her further.

Anne returns to Norfolk and listens again to the second recording, recognizing Balcombe's voice plotting to pressure and silence people like Hector. Her brother Ralph hints at a covert operation named 'Thin Man Dancing' for their cause, hinting at a wider conspiracy. Lawrence already seems to know more than he lets on.

Anne arranges a rendezvous with Lawrence at a suburban veterinary surgery to deliver the recording. Lawrence is found dead in a shed filled with euthanised pets, and Anne narrowly escapes, handing the recording to a child to post to Churchill. The danger grows as the resistance network tightens.

Back at Aunt Elizabeth's house near St Paul’s, Balcombe reveals that the second recording had been made for Sir Alexander. Sir Alexander explains his belief that Britain must seek early peace with Germany. Anne is deprived of water and imprisoned, but Maud eventually releases her while the rest of the family is at the park.

Anne escapes during the park scene as the family acts as though nothing happened. The tension lingers, showing the family’s manipulation of events and Anne's survival. The era ends with the world slipping toward war, and Anne's fate remains intertwined with the family’s secrets.

Walter reveals in the present that Anne died in Canada about twenty years earlier. Balcombe had manipulated Walter into moving Oliver’s pushchair into the lane. Michael, Oliver, and Walter eventually go to meet Michael's mother, and an elderly Anne sits in the park, suggesting a final, bittersweet truth.