Philomena (2013)

A woman teams up with a journalist in the search for the son whom she had as a teenager and was taken away from her.

A further examination of the issue tackled in The Magdalene Sisters (2002), this time from another angle. Apart from other virtues and faults with which I will deal in a bit, this is a minor film, yet mostly watchable, except for some annoyingly overscored passages and a tendency to schmaltz at some points. The film's greatest virtues are the psychological characterization of the title character, and the performance that materializes it. Its major fault is, alas, something a bit embarrassing for me to talk about, considering my previous enthusiastic endorsement of The Magdalene Sisters. Fact is, a year ago a report by the Irish government has seriously put into question the allegations of that film, as you can read here. Thus, I am taking a more balanced view of Philomena, and it has some aspects which are a bit problematic. The demonization of Sister Hildegard is childish, particularly in the embarrassingly ridiculous scenes near the end. When you read that these scenes are entirely fictitious (that nun died before the investigation started), you get a sense of anti-Catholic persecution and bigotry just as evil as any hypothetical Catholic traits of the same kind. To wrap this review up, there is also a profoundly stupid dialogue between Philomena and the journalist in which she admits to having suspected her infant son (three years old, if I am not mistaken) of homosexual tendencies on account of how he looked in overalls (or whatever the name of that type of clothes is).  No further comments.

Rating: 40