Thursday, October 1, 2015

A Stolen Life

Film: Philomena
Format: Streaming video from NetFlix on rockin’ flatscreen.

The movie(s) I watch on a given day are watched from a combination of availability, mood, and the need to remove movies from my various lists. I have a stack of movies checked out from the library sitting in front of me including the last two I need to complete the latest 1001 Movies list. But tonight I was in the mood for something lighter, something that didn’t require me to think that hard. I wanted something I could just sit back and enjoy. At the 1:37 mark, the trailer for Philomena calls it “…a comedy about two unlikely companions.” The trailer is also filled with scenes of Judi Dench being whimsically outspoken and brash. Sounded like the perfect thing for what I was in the mood for.

Philomena is not a comedy. There are a couple of funny moments in it, but all of the funny moments are in the trailer. All of them. In fact, aside from genocide and terminal illnesses, there aren’t a great many topics that are less funny than what Philomena explores. I’ll cut to the chase here early—this is a very good, perhaps even great movie—but it might be the most misleading trailer I’ve encountered this decade.

Martin Sixsmith (Steve Coogan), a former journalist, has lost his job in Britain’s Labour government by having quotes he didn’t make attributed to him. While contemplating writing a book of Russian history, he meets Jane (Anna Maxwell Martin), who suggests he write a story about her mother Philomena (Judi Dench). Philomena, fifty years earlier (and played by Sophie Kennedy Clark in these scenes), had a child as a teenager. Her family abandoned her at a convent where Philomena was forced to work for four years to pay off her debt for the nuns helping her with the childbirth. Without warning, one day her son Anthony is adopted and taken away from her. Now, just after her son’s fiftieth birthday, Philomena decides again to try to find the boy she lost.

Uninterested at first, Martin decides to go along with her to the convent to dig up any records they might have. They are told that almost all of the records were lost in a fire. In fact, the one record they still have is a document that shows Philomena gave up any and all rights to know anything about her son. At a nearby pub, Martin learns that the fire in question was not an accident; it was a bonfire in which the nuns destroyed most of the adoption records they held. He also learns that the convent sold the children to prospective parents for 1,000 pounds each, mostly to Americans. So, on the insistence of his editor Sally (Michelle Fairley), Martin heads to the U.S. with Philomena in tow.

I won’t summarize past this, because what happens is best left undiscussed in the specific. Suffice to say that while there are a few moments of comedy, most coming from Philomena’s charming naivety, the second and third acts of this film are not in the slightest a comedy.

So, while Philomena was mis-marketed badly, there are a lot of reasons to see this. Judi Dench tops the list here, of course. She’s Judi Dench, after all, and she’s great in everything she does even if the movie itself isn’t good. Steve Coogan is also very good in this. Again, the trailer makes him out to be a frustrated and exasperated surrogate son for the title character, but he’s much more and much more nuanced. The two of them carry the entire film, and they’re more than enough to carry it.

It’s also an engaging story made all the more engaging because it’s based on a real story of the real Philomena Lee and her search for her son. Frequently the movie has daydream sequences where Philomena thinks about what may have happened to her son; some of these are actual home movies of the real adopted son of Philomena Lee. It’s the sort of story any journalist would kill to have. It’s filled with duplicity, dirty dealings by the church, and vindictiveness disguised as self-righteous behavior. It’s hardly surprising that I’m pleased when a film depicts any church as being underhanded and shady.

Philomena is not the sort of movie I would claim to enjoy, but it’s an easy one to admire. The cast is good, with both Coogan and Dench being stellar. The story is immediately engaging and told beautifully. It’s perfectly paced throughout. The ultimate confrontation is surprising and while not particularly uplifting, it’s at least honest and in its own way redeeming.

Just don’t believe the trailer for a second. The trailer is a damn liar, and whomever made that thing ought to be beaten with sticks.

Why to watch Philomena: It’s really very good.
Why not to watch: The trailer is pure fertilizer.

10 comments:

  1. I liked this movie a lot. I went just to see the performances and was surprised at how good the film was. Great review.

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    1. Once I got over the fact that it wasn't at all the movie I was told it was, I thought it was great. I ultimately prefer the movie it is over the movie I thought it was going to be.

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  2. I would say I enjoyed this; while some saw it as too sweet and 'feel-good,' I agree with you about it being much darker than that. I haven't seen a Judi Dench performance that wasn't good; she rather inhabits her roles. She and Coogan were well-matched together.

    I didn't know the story's outcome going in, and I was really glad about that; certain emotional moments hit me more than I believe they would have had I known what happens.

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    1. Agreed. This is a film that is better the less you know going in.

      Dame Judi is awesome. I'd love to meet her, except that I think I would just gush about how awesome she is and make an ass of myself more than usual.

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  3. I have teetered back and forth on whether or not I really care to see this...but now I really want to!

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    1. It's surprising. As I said at the top, I expected a sweet little mindless feel-good. It's really not that at all. It's very dark in places, and it's the sort of film that will get you ready to punch someone at the end.

      Don't watch the trailer until after you've seen the movie.

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  4. Luckily I never saw the trailer for it. In fact, about all I knew was that it was a Best Picture nominee and that it seemed to be the most "out of left field" choice that year. When I watched the movie I ended up being as outraged and touched by it as I was by fellow nominee 12 Years a Slave. It was absolutely despicable what happened to her. This was my number 5 film of 2013.

    Here is my review of it: http://tipsfromchip.blogspot.com/2014/02/movie-philomena-2013.html

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    1. Yeah, I get that. The other reason I watched this yesterday is that it closed out Best Picture 2013 for me. I left it for last because (based on the trailer) it was the one I was the least interested in seeing.

      It's not even close to my least favorite nominee from its year.

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  5. I put off seeing this because a lot of what was written was that it was all Judi Dench and the surrounding film was nothing but a prop. I love her but I assumed it was something that could wait, possibly forever, while I caught up on other movies. But when she was nominated I decided to check it out and I'm so glad I did. It's not a great movie but quite a good one and of course Dench is superlative but I found the film affecting as well. I never saw the preview but it most certainly is not comedic.

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    1. The trailer literally calls it a comedy. That's false advertising, and it's worse than people calling Trainspotting a comedy. At least that one has some darkly comic moments.

      Judi Dench is the best part of this, but Steve Coogan isn't far behind. I was very impressed with him in this.

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