Thursday, July 24, 2014

Philomena. Director Stephen Frears. 2013.
A fine performance by Judy Dench as Philomena Lee in the film version of this retired nurse’s quest for her long-lost son, whom she was forced to give up in the early 1950s. Steve Coogan also offers a solid performance of the journalist Martin Sixsmith, who initially involves himself with Philomena’s story as a “human interest” piece . . . but soon finds that she and her situation test his values and beliefs, especially as he encounters the Catholic sisters of the abbey in Roscrea, Ireland, convent and orphanage who oversaw Philomena Lee’s pregnancy and the adoption process. Part of the humor in this otherwise sad-themed film hinges on the contrast between Philomena’s strict Catholic views of the evil of premarital sex and her exclamation of how pleasurable the sex actually was with her partner in sin. The secular side of Philomena is underscored in scenes where she frankly, even clinically, discusses her son’s homosexuality and death by AIDS in the mid 1990s. The Catholic/secular contrast is most obvious as Philomena views videos of her son’s adult life with his partner. Her joy at seeing evidence of her son’s happiness as a gay man lightens the mood of the film and adds biographical depth to the real Philomena Lee. The bio flick’s focus on complex human personality is evident, also, in the relationship between Philomena and Martin, she with her working-class Irish background  and he with his Oxford education and career in BBC journalism. Martin Sixsmith feels he’s come down in the world as he is fired from his job and forced to freelance as a human-interest storyteller. As the pair fly from Great Britain to the U. S. to find Philomena’s son and encounter a former colleague of Martin traveling in the first-class section of the plain, Philomena says, “just because you’re in first class doesn’t mean you’re a first-class person.” She also checks Martin’s anger, directed toward the sisters of the orphanage for having taken her baby from her, forced her into four years of labor to pay for her room and board during her pregnancy, and accepted money from wealthy American couples as they sought children for adoption. Martin sees the sisters, especially one Sister Hildegard, as purely evil, exploiting a teenage girl and her child for profit. But Philomena’s refusal to assign blame to the sisters and her willingness to accept responsibility for her behavior and choices remind Martin, and us, that Hildegard’s motives are ideologic, very much a part of her socialization.