Screened Out – Philomena

[five-star-rating] Judi Dench, Steve Coogan, Mare Winningham[/five-star-rating]

Philomena is a beautiful film, but it’s also a very tough sell. Obviously Steve Coogan believes in it. He is cowriter, producer, and lead actor. He has faith that audiences will connect with a story of simplicity and beauty in the face of repression, guilt, and self-righteous evil.

It’s all inspired by a true story, one that might shock some people. For almost two centuries, pregnant Irish teens were indentured to nuns who abused them, making them work long, hard hours in laundries, home factories, and gardens. The girls’ children were often adopted out; the nuns collected a fee for placing the babies with new parents. All of this was done to make the “loose” teenagers pay for their wanton lusts.

Philomena (Dench) is a devout Irish Catholic whose teenaged years were scarred by these sanctimonious nuns. After three years of slaving in the hot and dangerous laundry, only seeing her child for an hour a day, Philomena witnessed the nuns selling her baby. Now, on her son’s fiftieth birthday, Philomena has come to ask Coogan to help her locate her lost child.

As it is, Coogan is a shamed public servant and ex-reporter trying to find new footing in a career change back to journalism. He’s also a lapsed Catholic and a sourpuss skeptic. At first, he refuses what he thinks is a treacly “human interest story.”  Something, we never know, changes his mind.

So much could go wrong here. This tale could be an ugly, depressing slog – too lost in peeling back the covers on heartless crimes from 50 years before. It could go the other way, being too sweet and kind.

So, it’s not surprising that Philomena isn’t perfect. I admit I felt a little abused by a couple of the short, early flashbacks and their obviousness. It’s as if the film wants to beat us over the heads, like we’re parochial students whom the nuns are having a hard time teaching the lessons of the day.

Thank God most of Philomena reaches its audience through its actors. So much of this film is quieter, more gracious than what many people may feel is necessary when exploring such Catholic atrocities. Philomena offers a steady inclusion of gentle humor throughout. In the face of such oppression and abuse by a religious superpower, Coogan and his team decide to take the softer approach, focusing on character.

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It all works because of the lovely interplay between folksy Dench and cynical Coogan. She proves that she’s trying to be worldly in some of the most touching and funny ways. He can barely conceal his frustration at her hayseed observations and her complacency, her internal struggle between long-festering Catholic guilt and faithful hope. Their travels and investigations contrast his pugnaciousness against her bright-eyed sense of wonder.

Because we connect with these characters – and we learn to love both of them – Philomena takes a tough lesson and delivers it with mercy and grace.