Bearing many similarities to Albert Camus' 1946 existentialist text L'Etranger (The Outsider), The Darkest Hour is a powerful portrait of contemporary urban angst, isolation and unrequited love. Pat leads an apparently ordinary life as an attendant in a notorious public toilet where the majority of the clientele are either involved in drug deals or cottaging. The only light in his otherwise solitary life is Kim, a girl he is infatuated with, who works in a local cafe he frequents. When he is 'provoked' into committing an act of extreme violence, Pat's subsequent unorthodox reaction to his crime leads inevitably to his life changing forever.