A few years ago Oprah Winfrey had a show about the phenomenon known as passing. Before the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, passing was often done by light-skinned blacks who could pass as white. In the movie The Human Stain the life of a college professor who has been living as a Jewish man when he is actually African-American is examined.
Sir Anthony Hopkins plays Prof. Coleman Silk, a teacher at an East Coast college who is fired from his job for using the word spook when commenting on the ongoing absence of two students. When he used the word he was referring to them as ghosts but the African-American students accuse him of using a racial slur. Silk refuses to publicly reveal his racial identity and is a prisoner of the lie he created as a young man.
After Silk leaves the college he begins a friendship with his neighbor Nathan Zuckerman. Zuckerman is a writer whom Silk asks to record his memoir. Coinciding with his memoir project is the new relationship that he forms with a much younger woman played by Nicole Kidman named Faunia. Silk had never told his own wife Irene that he was African-American but as he becomes closer to Faunia the truth eventually comes out. What drives these two people together despite a vast age difference is the weight of the past that torments them.
The movie goes back and forth between the events that led Silk to disguise himself. The fear of missed opportunities and typecasting of his early life are revealed as the young Silk eventually makes a life altering choice. We also see the drama and tragedy of his lover who must stay one step ahead of her ex-husband, a Vietnam vet with PTSD, who is intent on revenge. Though Silk does not reveal to Nathan the lifelong deception it is in the aftermath of his death that the details emerge. Nathan is able to complete his book by painting a picture of the choice that Silk felt he had to make.