After her adoptive mother’s death, Hortense, a successful Black optometrist, establishes contact with her birth mother: a white working class single mother named Cynthia. Cynthia denies Hortense is her daughter. Meanwhile, Cynthia and her young daughter Roxanne manage their love-hate relationship.

Brenda Blethyn won the Palme d’Or for Best Actress in Mike Leigh’s gripping drama that explores the complicated relationships and frustrations of the modern family. Intricately staged and often howlingly funny, few films capture the dysfunctional emotional landscape of Britain with such clarity.