Philomena

Movie Title--  Philomena

Release Year-- 2013

Running Time--  1 Hour and 38 Minutes

Director--  Stephen Frears

Cast--  Judi Dench, Steve Coogan, Sophie Kennedy Clark, Sean Mahon, Peter Hermann, Michelle Fairley, Anna Maxwell Martin

The true story of Philomena Lee and the search for her son who was forceably adopted.

Martin Sixsmith (Steve Coogan) has lost his job as the Labor government adviser and to get back into the swing of working, he has decided to write a book about Russian history.  He goes to a party where a woman overhears him talking and approaches him about writing about her mother, Philomena Lee (Judi Dench), who was forced to give her son up for adoption fifty years earlier.  Martin is not keen on the idea of writing a human interest piece but after some thought, decides to meet with Philomena.  

As a young woman, Philomena meets a young man and after an encounter with him, becomes pregnant out of wedlock.  Her father sends her to live with the nuns at Sean Ross Abbey in Roscrea, Ireland.  After giving birth to a baby boy, she is forced to work at the abbey to pay off her debt to the nuns.  She works seven days a week and she gets to see her son for a hour a day until one day when he was adopted without any warning.  She keeps her son secret from all of her friends and family but she continues for years to visit the abbey to get information, only to be told by the nuns that they can not help her.

Together, Philomena and Martin travel to the abbey, only to get no where.  Before Philomena leaves, she is given an envelope that contains the contract that she has signed saying that she would not search for or try to contact her son.  At the inn they are staying at, Martin is told that the nuns deliberately destroyed all the paperwork pertaining to the adoption of the babies and that the babies were actually being sold to American citizens.  

Martin does more research but comes to a dead end in Ireland but does find a lead in America and invites Philomena to travel with him, knowing that he will not get far without having her there to inquire about her son.  Martin learns that Philomena's son Anothony was renamed Michael once he arrived in the United States.  He had grown to become a lawyer and a senior official in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations.  Martin and Philomena embark on a journey together to find out about Michael and what his life was like in America.

I really, really enjoyed this film.  It was heart-breakingly sad at points, especially knowing that it is a true story.  The story of Philomena Lee is very sad; she is given no choice in the adoption of her son, she spends years and years searching for him, only to learn that he had been sold to America.  On the other side of this story, Martin Sixsmith is disgraced and trying to find a way to get back on his feet when he is handed a human interest story that he may not have wanted but helped to uncover a big injustice committed by the Catholic Church's oversight in the Irish adoptions.

Dame Judi Dench and Steve Coogan are great together, although there are times that Coogan makes you just want to slap him because of his attitude and outlook toward everyone around him.  I would recommend this film to anyone but I will warn you, you may need tissues for this one and of course, Don't Forget the Popcorn!