Director: Stephen Frears
Talent: Judi Dench, Steve Coogan, Michelle Fairley, Mare Winningham
Release Date: 1st November 2013
If you weren’t from Ireland, the true-life story recounted in Philomena might resonate more strongly as a tale of the abuses perpetrated by religious orders in this country and the efforts of the victims to achieve redress. In other countries, there might be greater amusement and pathos to be derived from watching the unlikely double act of Steve Coogan, playing a disgraced political journalist holding his nose to pursue a “human interest story,” and Judi Dench, as Phil, a former inmate of Sisters of Charity home, desperate to find out what became her son, Anthony, who was sold by the nuns into adoption 50 years earlier. The problem for Irish viewers is not so much our over-familiarity with the reality of institutional abuse — the horror of what occurred is scarcely diminished by repetition — and more that we are watching an Irish story that is told from a slight, but nonetheless distorting, remove. Judi Dench is very convincing in her role, but it remains just a performance. Phil’s charming traits — naivety mixed with an unexpected sexual frankness, a fondness for drink — might be reflective of truths, but they feel a little too much like Irish Mammy clichés for us to give this true story our full commitment. Coogan’s gift for mining comedy from awkwardness and ego is well-suited to his role, and the mystery of what became of Anthony is spun out deftly. Ultimately, however, this film is more watchable than revelatory.
Words: Tony McKiver
