Director: Stephen Frears
Talent: Judi Dench, Steve Coogan, Michelle Fairley, Mare Winningham
Release Date: 6th December 2013

To the non-Irish folk, Philomena might resonate more strongly as a fictional tale of the abuses perpetrated by religious orders in Ireland and the efforts of the victims to achieve redress. Audiences abroad might derive superior amusement and pathos from the dubious double act of Steve Coogan, a disgraced political journalist holding his nose to pursue a “human interest story,” and Judi Dench, as Phil, a former inmate of the Sisters of Charity home – a woman who is desperate to know what became of her son who was sold by the nuns into adoption 50 years earlier. The problem for those who are all too familiar with the Irish ways is less over-familiarity with the reality of institutional abuse ― the horror of which is barely diminished by repetition ― and more that we are watching an Irish story told from a slight, but nonetheless distorting, remove. Judi Dench’s performance is good, but its very respectability denies it verisimilitude: Phil’s charming traits are too like typical Irish mommy clichés for me, as an Irishman, to give this true story my full commitment. Ultimately, Philomena is more watchable than revelatory.

Words by Tony McKiver