Philomena is a film in the vein of most of the Weinstein Company films: a solid movie that doesn’t do too much or too little, rests on some good performances and snappy dialogue. The movie, which is out this week, was runner up for the Audience Award at the Toronto International Film Festival and comes out with a certain pedigree. Thankfully this small flick manages to be enjoyable, if a little bit too well meaning, on its way to a pretty good conclusion.
Steve Coogan plays Martin Sixsmith, a former BBC official who just lost his job and is struggling with his unemployment to the point he is contemplating writing a novel on Russian History. Before he can follow through on that, he meets the daughter of Philomena Lee, who tells him that she has a story for him. A young Philomena, living in a convent, gets pregnant and signs away the rights to the convent she’s living at. She cared for him until at three her son was taken away from her and adopted by an American couple. When a headstrong editor of human interest pieces offers to foot the bill, Sixsmith visits with Philomena and decides to help her on her journey of trying to find her long lost son.
The success of Philomena rides mostly on the shoulders of Dame Judi Dench. Judi Dench is always solid and she’s really good here as Philomena. It’s interesting to watch Dench tackle this woman who seems to have one major regret and yet operates as if her life mus carry on. The burden of the search for her son wears on the character, but Dench never forgets to give some levity, even in the tough moments.
Coogan is surprisingly good in his role as Martin Sixsmith. Not just there to be a foil for Dench, Coogan manages to hold his own opposite the acting titan and carve out his place in the film. He does get more of the showier material in the film because of the character’s self importance but it felt apropos for the performance. Also turning good work was young Sophie Kennedy Clark as young Philomena, who has to be such an open book into the beginning of the heartbreaking story.
Jeff Pope and Coogan’s script is a pretty good adaptation, balancing the drama with some biting humor. This might be one of the funniest films I’ve seen the year, finding the proper mix of jokes admist what some pretty serious subject matter. The construction of the script is also interesting in that mid film you find out a gigantic plot development that most other screenwriters would have ended a film on. This film instead chooses to use this as a jumping off point for the rest of the film which leads to a pretty startling conclusion. The film is also a road trip movie as well as a human interest drama and functions very well as both of them.
However, the script for all its good construction, tries too hard to have it’s cake and eat it to with regards to its politics and thoughts on religion. The last 30 minutes rely far too heavily on the demonization of Catholics and in particular those running the convent Philomena was housed at. Like most stories that involve religion the characters have different views, but it was so strange seeing Sixsmith try and expound on his atheism to Philomena, then praise her for it. There’s a big climactic sequence that just wallops you over the head when it isn’t necessary to understand the depth of what has happen.
In any respect, I can’t really slam Philomena for anything because its just solidly made in every respect that you can get over the faults and enjoy the film.