A highly respected professor is forced to resign when some of his comments are misinterpreted as a racist slur. His reputation suffers further when his affair with a younger married woman is exposed and creates a scandal. However, his greatest struggle is to keep a life-long secret from becoming public. Drama, adapted from the novel by Philip Roth, and starring Anthony Hopkins, Nicole Kidman, Ed Harris and Gary Sinise.

Coleman Silk is a worldly and admired professor who loses his job after unwittingly making a racial slur. To clear his name, Silk writes a book about the events with his friend and colleague Nathan Zuckerman, who in the process discovers a dark secret Silk has hidden his whole life. All the while, Silk engages in an affair with Faunia Farley, a younger woman whose tormented past threatens to unravel the layers of deception Silk has constructed.