A successful black optician learns she is adopted and goes in search of her birth mother, who turns out to be a working class white woman, estranged from her brother and struggling to connect with her teenage daughter. The reunited mother and child soon become close friends, but tensions rise at a family gathering. Mike Leigh's drama, starring Brenda Blethyn, Marianne Jean-Baptiste and Timothy Spall.

After her adoptive mother dies, Hortense, a successful black optometrist, seeks out her birth mother. She's shocked when her research leads her to Cynthia, a working class white woman.