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.
Secrets & Lies is a 1996 comedy-drama film written and directed by Mike Leigh. Led by an ensemble cast consisting of many Leigh regulars, it focuses on a dysfunctional family whose relations are thrown into further chaos after Cynthia is contacted by her adult daughter Hortense, who was put up for adoption at birth and wishes to connect with her birth mother. Timothy Spall, Phyllis Logan, and Claire Rushbrook co-star as other members of the family.