Mike Leigh's superlative drama, at once hysterically funny and profoundly sad, examines a wounded contemporary British family. Hortense (Marianne Jean-Baptiste), a young black optometrist, has just buried her beloved adoptive mother. In her sorrow, she embarks on a search for her birth mother, who turns out to be Cynthia (Brenda Blethyn), a white factory worker living a lonely life with her surly daughter Roxanne (Claire Rushbrook). No one in the family, except Cynthia's brother Maurice (Timothy Spall) and his wife Monica (Phyllis Logan), knows that the teenage Cynthia gave up a child for adoption without ever seeing the baby. Hortense contacts Cynthia, and after a heart-wrenching reconciliation, they become best friends. Maurice and Monica, childless but financially secure, are very fond of Roxanne and host a family barbeque to celebrate her twenty-first birthday. Cynthia convinces Hortense to attend the party and meet the family as a mate from the factory--but during the cake and champagne celebration, the family's secrets and lies emerge in a cathartic, emotional sweep. Leigh's trademark for developing his films characters and storylines from an intense series of improvisations with the actors themselves reaches its summit with Hortense and Cynthia's reunion in a coffee shop, resulting in another deeply moving portrait of a family at a personal crossroads.