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.
