Philomena (2013)
Directed by Stephen
Frears
Pathé, 98 minutes,
PG-13
* * * *
Nobody does dramatic pas
de deux like the British. They love to put two talented actors front and
center and just let them have a go. There are other characters in Philomena, but it’s essentially a
two-person play on film: Philomena (Judi Dench), and the jaded fallen
politician-turned journalist Martin Sixsmith (Steve Coogan), who reluctantly
agrees to help her uncover her son’s fate.
This film adapts the true story of Philomena Lee’s 50-year
search for a son taken from her by the Irish nuns with whom she lived. It opens
inside a 1950s chamber of horrors known as a Catholic convent, where Philomena
Lee is a charity case/inmate. Like dozens of young single mothers, she
slavishly toils for the nuns for the pleasure of the single hour per day they
are allowed to be with their children. Each lives with the terror of knowing
that the sisters are beating the bushes in search of ‘good families’ to adopt
their sin-conceived offspring.
Flash forward to the early 21st century when an aged,
widowed Philomena can no longer live without knowing the fate of her son, who
would be turning 50. Her quest happens to coincide with Martin’s need to
salvage his reputation. He’s a former Labour Party official who becomes the
fall guy for deeds he did not commit, but from whose shadow he cannot escape.
He’s also become a cynical bastard with very little interest in Philomena’s
plight; Martin takes on what he feels to be a human-interest story beneath his
dignity only because he’s out of work and it’s the only work-for-hire looming
on the horizon.
The movie is as much about the developing rapport between
Philomena and Martin as in solving a decades-old mystery. We expect Dench to be
great, and she is. She also physically transforms herself into a dowdy woman of
simple tastes and rock-steady faith–the exact opposite of Martin, who is more
like an Icarus who survives the fall. He’s worldly, well connected, wealthy,
and too angry to believe in much of anything. One of the film’s biggest
revelations is that Steve Coogan can do drama. He is known on both sides of the
Atlantic as a comedian (though I’ve never found him to be all that humorous).
He, like Dench, stays within his role. Unlike what happens in far too many
American films, both Dench and Coogan bend, but they never break. That is to
say, there’s no conventional guess-we’re-all-the-same-under-the-skin phoniness.
Quite the contrary; the Brits also excel at recognizing social class, and hard-to-traverse
social gaps are a major subtheme within the script.
Speaking of the script, Coogan co-wrote it and he also
helped produce the film, so we must assume that this project was one he found
personally meaningful. The subject matter is biographical, though we’ve seen
other films like this, including The
Magdalene Sisters (2002). No spoilers here, though I will say that
Philomena’s plight is among the many sins for which the Catholic Church needs
to be held accountable. That topic assures that Philomena has a tailored audience waiting. (Ex-Catholics would make
up the world’s 3rd largest Christian denomination. Practicing
Catholics are the largest.)
Fine, but do we love Philomena
as a movie? It has won a handful of
awards worldwide, mostly at festivals. I liked it a lot, though it must be said
that it just as easily could have been a play and might work even better on
stage. When the film jets us to Ireland and Washington, DC, it feels more like
scene padding and an excuse for class-based cheap comic relief than necessary
detail. A stage production would require more character development on the part
of cameos whose movie motives are incomplete. Still, watching Dench in anything
is worthwhile, and the discovery that Coogan has both dramatic flair and
screenwriting ability is its own reward, so let’s not be as cynical as Martin
Sixsmith.
Rob Weir
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