Philomena
2013
****
Director: Stephen Frears
Cast: Judi Dench, Steve Coogan, Michelle Fairley, Barbara Jefford, Anna Maxwell Martin, Mare Winningham
A jobless journalist Martin Sixsmith discovers Philomena Lee's tragic story. In the 1950s she was forced to work in an Irish convent which sold her infant boy for adoption. The two travel to America in an attempt to track down the son. This lovely fact-based drama is based on Sixsmith's book The Lost Child of Philomena Lee. Steve Coogan and Jeff Pope's script wonderfully juxtaposes the world view of a cynical and embittered Oxford graduate with that of a charitable working class woman. The results are funny, heartbreaking and surprising. Dench and Coogan are both excellent.
