Movie: Philomena

Lucky · November 28, 2013

Last night the spouse put the movie Skyfall on the TV. It's playing on Netflix, and I loved it when I saw it in the theaters. Judi Dench is in it, and I like watching her on screen as well.

So it seemed natural to go see her newest movie, Philomena. She doesn't play the tough head of a spy agency, but rather a lonely mother who had to give her son away when she gave birth at the age of 14, some 50 years back. Evil, cold, cruel Catholic nuns took her in, took her baby, and then subjected her to years of slave labor to pay their costs. We don't know what those costs were, especially since the nuns sold the babies they took in to US folks needing a baby or two.

Philomena has always wanted to find the son she signed away, promising never to do just that. But, as part of a prospective story, a magazine underwrites her trip to the US to find her son, accompanied by a reporter with a back story of his own. After various amusing situations, frustrating situations, and a few closed doors, they finally to learn that the son grew up to be a lawyer, indeed, chief counsel to presidents Reagan and Bush the Elder. He was also gay and died of AIDS.

So, we get a double whammy here. Judi retains her faith in the Church despite the sins they exercised on her. And, like mother, like son, as our gay lawyer turned his back on his own community to support Reagan and the Republicans when they themselves tuned their backs on AIDS. Naturally, the son died of AIDS.

Did he ever try to find his mother? I'll leave that as my one spoiler left unsaid. The first hour of the movie drags and only comes alive with the discovery of the son. But it does a good job of showing a mother's love for her son and the frustratingly appalling ability of a mother to keep her faith in a Catholic Church that not only abused her, but gays and people with AIDS. Is there any insult a Catholic mother won't endure to keep right with Rome?