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.

Super 8 (2011). Director J. J. Abrams

Set in 1979 and filmed in the Spielberg style of that period (Star Wars 1977, and later E. T. 1982), the film has great comedic moments, as when one of the kids in the film comments on drugs being bad, such an overstatement in the scene because, in contrast, the kids are in grave danger from both the Air Force and a nocturnal, subterranean alien creature that hunts humans as its food source. Watching Super 8 here is 2014 flipped me back to the 70s, the style of it being just realist enough not to be too cheesy, yet bursting with special effects and the kind of wave-crashing romantic movie music that Erich-Wolfgang Korngold introduced in the 1930s. It was as if Super 8 was actually filmed in 1979, in anticipation of the boy/alien high adventure of E. T., where the sublime alien ship rises above the earth before disappearing into the sky, where the grandeur of that ship is matched in mood by the tight hug between the child and his parent, that sublime human family bond, as it were. Even the moments of comedic relief are true to the period, a la Star Wars . . . or is it the earlier TV series Star Trek that delivered one-liners in the middle of life/death struggles?

Inspector Morse: The Dead of Jericho (1987)

I never watched Inspector Morse when it appeared on television during the 90s. It was Inspector Lewis and especially the prequel Endeavour that caused me to see the first Morse episode, in which Morse and Lewis start to work together. I can see how in 2012-14 the writers of the prequel and Shaun Evans developed the earlier Morse, with his high intelligence, his moody awkwardness, his tendency toward alcoholism, his unorthodox police methods, and his disregard for authority. What a combination of motives: Morse’s eagerness to find the truth and comfort the wronged even as he’s overwhelmed by melancholic doubt in his own character, by doubt in the character of humanity. For me, however, the most interesting element is the tangled motives for murder that Morse puzzles over as he listens to operatic and orchestral greats. And I enjoy the well-placed use of morse code: It “punctuates” the wistfulness of Endeavour with wry knowledge of a disappointing world.