My Name Is Joe explores the emotional struggles of Joe and Sarah amidst the drugs, prostitution and violence that condition their lives. No longer young, the couple bring baggage from the past so that tenderness is laced with the wariness of those bearing scars of previous emotional battles.

The details of their story reflect the reality of late '90s Glasgow, a divided society where options are so limited that the hair's-breadth frontier between survival and disaster is often just a matter of luck. Can these two people, from different walks of Glasgow life, emotionally hampered as they are, succeed in building a relationship in these circumstances?