A film
review by Claudia Puig for USA Today, on November 21, 2013.
Philomena will induce sorrow and anger.
Smiles, fortunately, are also in the mix. The tale of a cynical journalist who
helps an elderly woman learn what happened to the young son who was taken away
from her is compelling, poignant and gently funny. Steve Coogan co-wrote the script with Jeff Pope and also plays the journalist. Judi Dench brings the Irish-born Philomena to life with good humor
and dignity. It’s a wonderfully memorable performance by one of the acting
world’s greats.
Philomena
reaches her sunset years needing to unburden herself of a secret that’s been
consuming her for half a century. She had never told the family she later had
about the son she gave birth to at 16 and the three years she spent with him in
a strict Catholic convent. Forced to give him up for adoption, she has never
gotten over the loss. Privately, Philomena has visited the Irish convent
inquiring about the sweet boy she named Anthony. She was treated with
patronizing courtesy, offered tea, but no empathy - and zero information.
After
she tearfully spills her story to her adult daughter, on what would be Anthony’s
50th birthday, her daughter connects Philomena with former BBC journalist
Martin Sixsmith (Coogan). The reporter initially resists what he dismisses as a
human interest feature. He’s a political reporter. But, drawn by her sad tale,
he spends five years helping Philomena search for her son, sorting through a
tangled web of secrets and hidden truths.
Director
Stephen Frears compassionately
chronicles an emotional personal odyssey and intelligently explores a larger
socio-cultural issue. The shame that the Catholic Church imposed upon unwed
mothers is made palpable. The church in Ireland is also exposed for profiting
from the adoptions of these babies.
Only a
few plot holes keep the film from greatness. Coogan and Pope tidily adapted the
script from Sixsmith’s 2009 book, adding a road trip in which Philomena and
Martin travel to the United States. That’s where the most shattering
revelations emerge, but it’s also where the film trips up somewhat.
Philomena’s
son was adopted along with Mary, a little girl who was his beloved best pal as
a toddler. When Philomena encounters Mary (Mare
Winningham) as an adult, the film seems to have left some crucial dialogue
- or perhaps an emotional scene - on the cutting-room floor. We’ve come to know
the good-natured, chatty Philomena, and her reaction upon seeing Mary after
five decades is uncharacteristically muted.
Otherwise,
the story is fascinating and the performances are convincing, with charming
chemistry between Coogan and Dench. Philomena is still a devout woman, despite
her cruel treatment from severe Irish nuns as a young girl (sensitively played
in flashbacks by Sophie Kennedy Clarke).
She was bound in a kind of indentured servitude at the convent - three years of
labor in the convent laundry in exchange for the medical care she and her young
son received. Philomena Lee’s cheery strength and quiet determination is deeply
moving. She will not be made into a victim, nor does she lose her abiding
faith.
Philomena makes a winning holiday movie,
embodying the ideals of what the season is truly about: forgiveness, kindness
and goodwill toward one’s fellow man. [Claudia Puig's rating: *** out of 4]
Labels:
biography, drama, Fifties
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