Secrets & Lies

“Roxanne drives her mother crazy. Maurice never speaks to his niece. Cynthia has a shock for her family. Monica can't talk to her husband. Hortense has never met her mother.”

After her adoptive mother dies, Hortense (Marianne Jean-Baptiste), a successful optometrist, sets out to find the woman who gave birth to her. The search ends at Cynthia (Brenda Blethyn), a working-class white woman who has no idea her adult daughter is looking. Mike Leigh builds the scenes around Cynthia's household, and she has spent years holding that family together without ever telling anyone about Hortense.