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Philomena Movie Review

Philomena is a 2013 drama film directed by Stephen Frears and starring Judi Dench and Steve Coogan. It’s such a heartbreaking, wonderful movie.

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“Fucking Catholics“

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BBC journalist Martin Sixsmith reaches out to Philomena Lee to help her in her mission to find her son who was given up for adoption when she was a teenager. This is one of those movies that they simply don’t make as often nowadays, but that were quite numerous back in the day. I am talking about a mid-budget drama that is a crowd-pleaser and that functions as a sad, but also uplifting dramedy. As a result, it’s very difficult not to love it.

It was a crucial choice to include comedy in its proceedings as otherwise this tale of evil nuns and the horrible injustice and pain that they inflicted on these women and their children would be unbearable to watch. But the humorous touches eased our pain as viewers and made the movie an utter treat and a tonally complex film. There are numerous lines of dialogue from both characters that were so charming and very funny with the title character’s ignorance and good heart making up the bulk of these stellar jokes.

But it does remain a very dark story that mostly happened, which made it even more tragic. Some liberties were taken with the story and some plot points were too over-the-top (the son’s partner not wanting to speak with Philomena and the final confrontation with that horrible nun were the most unrealistic examples of that), but for the most part the movie was true to real life events.

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The film is important in showcasing the evil practices of these nuns who sold kids for adoption without the consent of their mothers. The movie directly critiqued those practices and the nuns involved with them while still distinguishing between real, honest faith and the evils of organized religion, which was crucial as otherwise the movie would be anti-religion propaganda.

This is one of Judi Dench’s finest performances. She embodied this character so well and extra props go to her for actually selling this common, less intelligent woman and making her seem both so real and oh so endearing. Dench is raw, powerful and understated throughout, making the case that this is her career-best turn. The movie focused heavily on her character that, thus, felt perfectly realized and on all accounts like a real person.

This was done to the detriment of her screen partner Steve Coogan. Martin’s sense of justice is admirable and I loved his arc that goes from judging this woman to actually empathizing with her and helping her out. But individually he wasn’t all that well fleshed out. But Coogan imbued him with a lot of charisma and humor nonetheless. The dynamic that developed between the two was so infectiously charming that the movie at times resembled a buddy cop movie in the best way possible.

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Philomena has a lovely score by Alexander Desplat that was rightfully nominated for an Oscar. Dench could have easily won this year and there is a strong argument that she should have won. The film features solid editing, some pretty seamless transitions and flashbacks, and the first half functioned as this very interesting mystery. There are flaws to be found with its ending that tied everything up too neatly and cinematically, but this is for the most part one of Stephen Frears’ best efforts.