Philomena Lee, played by Judi Dench, had a child when she was a naïve teenager who had
never had reproduction explained to her. She gave birth at the convent she’d
been sent to, and her son was put up for adoption as part of the deal. Fifty
years later she still thinks of him constantly and wonders if he ever thinks of
her.
Enter Martin Sixsmith, a former BBC reporter who took the
fall for a scandal, though he wasn’t at fault. Martin agrees to help Philomena
track down her son.
Martin is a jaded, worldly guy who is condescending about
the beliefs and ideas of the older woman he is helping. He is writing Philomena’s
situation as a human-interest story as a way to get back into reporting. He is
angry about what happened to him, and his general bitterness only becomes more
inflamed by Philomena’s story.
Philomena, on the other hand, has no axe to grind, in spite
of the suffering she endured at the hands of the nuns in her youth. She just
wants to know her son.
These two travel together (in reality they just talked on
the phone a lot, but that’s hard to turn into a movie) following up leads.
Philomena struggles with her own guilt over her son, while Martin is utterly
annoyed that she could be feeling guilty when he sees all of this as the fault
of the Catholic church.
His atheism and her devout Catholicism make for an
interesting combination as he seeks retribution while she espouses forgiveness.
I really loved this movie and it has stayed in my mind. Judi
Dench is fabulous, as is to be expected, and Steve Coogan portrays Martin with
a great blend of coldness and undesired compassion. The movie asks hard
questions about faith and forgiveness, but it leaves room for redemption and
grace.
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