The story of Hugh "Shuggie" Bain, a sweet and lonely boy who spends his 1980s childhood in run-down public housing in Glasgow, Scotland, taking care of his beloved mother Agnes. Agnes is a proud, beautiful woman who turns herself out like her idol Elizabeth Taylor, but she is an alcoholic, and spends most of the family's weekly benefits money on alcohol. Shuggie is meanwhile doing all he can to somehow become the normal boy he desperately longs to be, but everyone has realized that Shuggie is "no right," and now Agnes's addiction has the power to eclipse everyone close to her, especially her beloved Shuggie