The Slap

The day before Hector turns 40 his wife Aisha has planned a barbecue with their friends and family. The day starts off well but soon takes a downward spiral as a series of tensions arise throughout the afternoon. The slap and its consequences force him to examine his own behavior, his own weaknesses and his own regret.

Anouk, Aisha's best friend, is pregnant at the age of forty-one and has to make the decision as to whether she really wants the child. Anouk feels pressured to condemn the slap when she has often felt the like administering one to her friends' children.

Hector's cousin is a self-made man who has the perfect wife, the perfect child, and the perfect house by the bay. He discovers that his aspirational achievements are about to become undone because in a moment of rage he slapped a child.

At seventeen she is the orphan child of radical parents whose libertarian ethical code may have not prepared her for the colder, non-bohemian world of suburban Australia. Her love for a man over twice her age makes her both a victim and an outcast.

Hugo's mother is a woman whose whole life has been radically transformed by the birth of her baby. For Rosie, mothering has become a passionate vocation, and an opportunity for renewal. Her outrage at what she considers Harry's abuse of her son becomes an obsession which threatens to overwhelm her.

Hector's father is a man approaching the end of his life. He wishes his nephew had not hit the child but he is alarmed by how the event has divided his family, in particular the tensions it has created between Hector and Aisha.

Entering her forties, Aisha is assailed by doubts about her marriage and future. The slap at the barbecue has left her torn, her loyalties divided between her husband and one of her oldest friends. Hector and Aisha take a holiday in Bali and confront the demons of their marriage and family life.

Connie's best mate at school wishes the world were a simple, harmonious place. Confused by this, and the only one who knows Connie's secret, he inadvertently sets off a chain of events which brings all the tensions, familial and marital deceits, all the unspoken truths, onto a collision course