The main events of Charles Dickens's novel Hard Times (1854) unfold in the small industrial town of Coketown in Northern England, where circumstances bring together the interests and hopes, pragmatic calculations and selfless dreams of people from different walks of life.

Sir Thomas Gradrind, the owner of a school with a special 'practical' educational system, a man of sober mind, a devotee of precise figures and facts, takes into his family Sissy Jupe, the daughter of an old circus clown, a girl with a kind heart and a lively imagination. Gradrind's eldest daughter, Louisa, who, at her father's insistence, married the elderly banker and manufacturer Bounderby, helps the weaver Stephen Blackpool, who has lost his job and is accused of a crime committed by her brother Tom. At a critical moment in her own life, she finds solace and support in Sissy. Circus owner Mr. Sleary rescues Tom, who is on the wanted list... Living human emotions repeatedly overcome class prejudices, leading to the collapse of false values ​​and the revelation of long-held family secrets.