Philomena 2013
This movie got a lot of attention from the Oscars in 2014, getting nominations for Best Picture, Actress, Adapted Screenplay, and Score, but striking out on all of them. I like Steve Coogan, but never got around to seeing it, eventually getting a cheap digital copy and finally downloaded it to my iPad so I could watch during my commute. This is a good movie and I wound up watching the second half of the movie when I got home. The movie centers around Judi Dench’s character, Philomena, who as a girl turns to a convent when she gets pregnant and has no alternative. The convent makes her work and makes her agree to give her child up for adoption, allowing her only an hour of contact a day until the boy is adopted about three years later. She tries to find out what happened to her son, eventually contacting Steve Coogan’s character, a journalist, who agrees to look into it. There is a story here about forced labor and adoptions, dangerous medical conditions and evil nuns, but also a human story about a woman who has worried constantly about a son she hasn’t seen for fifty years.
The real story was turned into a book but the movie claims only to be inspired by a true story. Some of what you see on screen is just made up for a better story and it kind of feels that way unfortunately. Wikipedia wasn’t a huge help about pointing out differences, but did list a few. Also, I think it is easy to kick the church on this, but these maternity/work/adoption convents seem to have been common and not unique to Protestant or Catholic faiths, though this one in Ireland seems to be truly terrible while others were actually very helpful. While personalizing the story makes it more human, ignoring the many others loses sight of the significance of what was happening. I still like the movie, the story, and the characters, but I feel like a little is missing.
Written: 06 Mar 2020
Owned on: Digital