After his ex-wife was killed in a bombing at Heathrow Airport, psychologist David Markham embarks on a quest to uncover the true motives behind a contemporary heart of darkness: Chelsea Marina - a gated middle-class community in London, whose residents, led by an enigmatic pediatrician and an eccentric film lecturer, rebel against their own life choices. The targets of their desperate revolt include travel agencies, shopping malls, cat shows, video rental stores, parking meters, real estate offices, and the museums and cultural institutions that are so integral to the bourgeois distinction of the city. Bored with their routine, outraged by rising costs and new parking restrictions, the middle class absurdly undermines itself, presenting as a new proletariat, instigating a revolt against existential emptiness.