Good concept, poorly executed.

Absolutely Fantastic

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Brilliant played and absolutely fantastic written.

I think that Philomena is in many ways comparable to Vertigo, the classic 1957 Hitchcock movie. Let's see in what they are different. Vertigo is fictional. Its character, Scottie, is a middle age weary, depressed man while Philomena is a real senior citizen who is some kind of an idealist person. I found a similarity in the sense that both characters are victims of tragedies that have hurt them tremendously and marked out their life. Both tragedies were committed by evildoers not by natural disasters. Scottie and Philomena are characters involved in searches looking for answers that may heal their scars. Both characters are complemented by another person in their search. They founded their partners by chance. Unlikely Philomena, Scottie's partnership is dark and mysterious. Phil's partnership is unambiguous although non symmetrical. Martin would be professionally helpful to her but his heart is not fully into this pursuit. He is wounded after a setback related to his job as a high roller political journalist and at this point he is cynical and pessimistic. Both movies are emotionally complicated stories involving a travel to the past and in both cases it was resolved with subtlety, ability and talent. Philomena is actually a road movie since many of the leads are quite far apart. This implies a close interacting between Phil and Martin even more intense when we add the chasing of leads which entails new emotional brinks due to the hopes, doubts and uncertainty involved. Of course I am not going to get into details but there are few finding and leads that enhances the story. Movies which are inquisitive and go into obscure paths, to the heart of a tragedy, into places where individuals have been gravely injured are very hard to realize. When the backbone of a story is the theft of a toddler by catholic nuns is very hard to create art while holding anger, fury and sentimentality. Evildoers holding positions of power are common material for movies but you need a special vision to make them entertaining. Stephen Frears counted with an apt cast and crew. The adapted script is excellent. If you are familiar at all with Judi Dench's work, you can predict the quality of any of her roles but this time Dame Judi fleshed out Philomena with a tenderness that expresses a unique, real human being. Another outstanding performance.Steve Coogan very aptly expressed the nature of his character and the evolution from quiet cynicism to open, sincere anger. Stephen Frears implemented and balanced the golden elements available for this film. He creates an atmosphere that expresses the points of view of Philomena and builds a sequence of images and dialog that keep us our attention intact. As a director he took the job of master storyteller and excels at it.

The search for a lost child is always filled with mystery, but in the case of Judi Dench as the title character, she seems to see her son's life happening long after they were separated. Taken to an Irish convent where mostly cruel nuns took in unwed mothers, sold the babies to wealthy Americans and made them work off the "hospitality" through hard labor. With the help of a BBC reporter, Dench travels to Washington DC where the truth is revealed, and all is not happy once she finds out.While the novel tells the story mostly through the son's eyes, this is told through Philomena's, obviously to focus on the wonderful Dench. It's not a story of the evils of the church, but one woman's determination to reach out to her greatest love, an adorable little boy who went far in life, but not without a price.The way this story is told in other hands would be a lifetime movie, but with Dench, it is a personal story, a character study, a tale of redemption and finality, and obviously, a lesson in what great acting is all about. Dench is pretty much the whole film, glowing even under the most tragic of circumstances. One should not see the negativity about the church here, just one aspect of a huge organization that has a history of both good and evil.

A political journalist is moved by the story of a woman who tries to find her son after 50 years and so he takes upon helping her and writing her story. As it is based on real facts, the story couldn't have outdone itself. But the simplicity of it along with the extraordinary twists gives the movie a freshness that couldn't be found in a made up story. The performances are brilliant, along with simple, real dialogues. The story doesn't focus only on Philomena finding her son, but on the role of church in it, of society and how religion can be viewed differently from different people. Philomena is kind hearted, religious but flexible. She forgives the people who have harmed her and she loves her boy, even if she hadn't seen him for 50 years and he is different of what she expected. So 7 out of 10, only because the movie tended to focus on the journalist and his character more than on Philomena's story.