Bruce Pritchard (Malcolm McDowell) is a 24-year-old working-class man and amateur soccer player with a passion for life. All this changes when he suddenly finds himself struck down by an incurable degenerative disease and needing to use a wheelchair for the rest of his life. He makes a self-imposed exile to a church-run home for the disabled, believing that it is best for his immediate family to forget about him the way he is now. His bitterness at his fate and his dislike of the rules and regulations of the place only serve to make him more withdrawn and angry at his enforced imprisonment.