Despite hailing from a comfortable family background, budding poet Gordon Comstock decides to declare war on money and all the middle-class trappings that wealth can buy. Working in a small bookshop and living in a bedsit in London, he dreams of completing an ambitious poem in rhyme royal and devote his entire life to literature. But when poverty begins to damage his own self-esteem and taint his worldview, and his romantic and professional lives start falling apart, will Gordon be able to uphold his anti-money principles or will he succumb to the lure of lucre and everything he used to stand against?