Under the Volcano

On the Day of the Dead in 1938, in the Mexican town of Quauhnahuac beneath two volcanoes, former British consul Geoffrey Firmin drinks his way toward destruction. His ex-wife Yvonne has returned hoping to save him, and his half-brother Hugh joins their last attempt at connection, but Firmin is too far gone in mescal, memory, and self-loathing to be reached. Lowry compresses the action into a single day and stays inside Firmin's flooding, allusive mind, building a portrait of guilt and addiction that ends in the violence the town has been promising all along.