Judi Dench has had a remarkable career earning her stripes mostly playing intelligent women who possess that extra edge to make themselves the smartest person in the room. Steve Coogan has, with some notable exceptions, staked out a reputation as an outlier comedic actor. In Philomena, directed by Stephen Frears (The Queen), they both go against type. Too bad the film itself, while watchable and at times sharp, finds itself too often stuck in a schematic rut.
Dench does her best to channel Judy Holliday and Lucille Ball as the less than bright common woman with a big heart and unwavering ideals. The talented Coogan plays it totally straight as the far more aristocratic, atheist savvy journalist. Comedic moments demonstrating their significant differences work pretty well when they’re not clashing with the film’s bigger theme of Catholic Church hypocrisy and a woman’s forgiveness.
It all feels a but too pie in the sky at times despite a Coogan co-written screenplay that goes for a nuanced, complex look at a woman, who after 50 years, is looking to find her born out-of-wedlock son, who was sold out from under her by the nuns operating a virtual prison for banished moms. Dench recalls being forced to work the County Tipperary abbey’s laundry while only allowed visiting privileges with her son for one hour a day before he’s eventually sold off to American parents. Adding insult to injury, she’s forced to sign a contract forbidding from tracking her son’s whereabouts.
Although The Sisters of Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary has disavowed the film’s contention that any babies were sold or birth records burned, the practice of thousands of unwed mothers sent off to these institutions was a common practice in Ireland for decades. Philomena, based on a memoir by Martin Sixsmith, the real life Coogan, sheds light on the long-term impact of one incidence of insensitivity and impropriety with an emphasis on the human element. For a more compelling and sweeping look at the same subject without the sidetracking comedic hijinks of Philomena, check out Peter Mullan’s comprehensive look at monastery vulgarities in 2002’s The Magdalene Sisters. You won’t find Judi Dench in that one but your subsequent far greater understanding of the subject will be its own reward.