The film tells the story of Hortense Cumberbatch, a successful black middle class optometrist in London, who is adopted and chooses to trace her family history after the death of her adoptive mother.
Despite being warned of potential problems, she continues her search only to learn that her birth mother is white does not resent her and wants to know more about her past. Her birth mother, Cynthia Purley, is working class and downwardly mobile. Hortnese meets her and later meets Cynthia's brother Maurice Purley, a photographer, his wife Monica and Cynthia's daughter Roxanne, a street cleaner.
All have their own secrets in this dysfunctional extended family.
LOCATIONS
Leigh uses a number of outside locations to
shoot the film all based in the inner London Boroughs of Westminster, Barnet and Tower
Hamlets. Cynthia’s house, which appears several times in the film, is located
at 76,
Quilter Street, Bethnal Green, Tower Hamlets. Cynthia’s brother a
professional photographer lives at Southgate in the London Borough of Barnet where
he also has his studio. Both his house at 76, Whitehouse Way and his studio at
34
The Green, Southgate also appear in the film. Other film locations
include the Office of Population and Censuses located at 10 Kingsway, Aldwych
and Holborn
Station Underground Station are used in scenes. Both are located in the
London Borough of Westminster.
TOURIST LINKS
www.londontown.com (lists tourist attractions in the Holborn area)
www.travelstay.com (identifies tourist attractions in the vicinity of Bethnal Green
www.visitlondon.com (suggest possible day’s out in the Southgate area)