8.5 Hours

8.5 Hours is a 2008 Irish film written and directed by Brian Lally. The film tells the story of one frantic day in the lives of four Dublin software workers during the final months of Irelands Celtic Tiger boom years. The film stars Lynette Callaghan, Art Kearns, Victor Burke and Jonathan Byrne. The film won several awards on the Irish film festival circuit, including Best Irish Feature Film at the International Film Festival Ireland in Clonmel 2009, Best Actress award for Lynette Callaghan at the Yellow Fever Independent Film Festival in Belfast 2009 and was awarded 2nd place in the Best Feature category at the Waterford Film Festival.

8.5 Hours is a contemporary ensemble drama that mixes serious drama with black comedy and has some very dark and unexpected plot twists. The film is set in 2007 just before Irelands Celtic Tiger was about to end and the plot intertwines the four parallel narratives of the lead characters Rachel, Eoin, Frank and Tony. Their lives are linked as they all work together in the same office in a small Irish software company.Rachel, played by Lynette Callaghan, is an ambitious marketing executive who on turningappears to panic about what she perceives as her lack of achievement at a time of great economic opportunity. She becomes obsessed with an overpriced apartment in Dublins prestigious Ballsbridge area and after a bruising opening scene where her boyfriend ends their relationship because she had a drunken one night stand, Rachel is determined to buy the apartment on her own at whatever cost. All closing bids for the apartment must be in by the end of the day so for most of the film, Rachel is preoccupied with a raceagainsttime to raise her salary in order to get a mortgage she cant afford. As she runs out of time, she becomes increasingly desperate and irrational and ends up blackmailing her boss to give her an unreasonable pay rise. ........

Source: Wikipedia