Four successful professional people. representative of the self-admiring “new" Ireland and proud of their image in society, are trapped for one night into acting out the truth about themselves and abandoning the roles they play in public. When these four old friends are forced to remove their public masks and scrutinise their real selves, they find that their relationships are irreparably undermined.

Criminal Conversation (a legal term for adultery) examines the stress of failing marriage in a country where both Church and State prohibit divorce. Following on the same director's Exposure (1978), which marked a breakthrough in Irish cinema, Criminal Conversation takes a cold look at the behaviour of lreland's nouveaux riches in the context of an emotional crisis.