Philomena (2013 Nominee)

A political journalist, Martin Sixsmith, picks up the story of Philomena's search for her son, who was taken away from her decades ago after she became pregnant and was forced to live in a convent.

Every year there seems to be one Best Picture nominee that is the independent underdog, the one that sort of sneaks in there that many may not have seen, and this year that film is Philomena. We had to go to some lengths to see this film; luckily, Katie and I were visiting my brother in Missoula to see a play he was in and it was showing a vintage theater downtown- you know, like one that serves alcohol and still has red curtains that part to reveal the screen. Unfortunately, we watched it in the smaller viewing room with a pretty small screen and there were lots of fizzes and pops during the movie. You could hear the whirring of the projector the whole time and the movie even stopped in the middle for a few minutes because someone forgot to switch the reel. It was one part charming and at least one part ghetto; I sometimes worried that I may be sitting in between Pee-Wee Herman and Travis Bickle, if you catch my drift. But anyway, I digress. We came to this film with little idea of the plot, and I anticipated a cute British comedy because of the posters but this is actually a pretty serious film with some frustrating issues and painful subject matter. Judi Dench is fabulous as always but the real surprise here is Steve Coogan. On top of a solid performance he has taken on writing and producing duties to produce a wonderful film and is up for several Oscars on Sunday. This was obviously a project he had a lot of passion for (he even read the script for Dench as her eyesight is reportedly beginning to fail her) and it’s wonderful to see that pay off. We have always been fond of him but we didn’t expect this out of him- I mean he’s the guy that exploded into a million pieces in Tropic Thunder and showed the whole world his junk in Hamlet 2. Much like Nebraska, a perfectly balanced tone of comedy and tragedy makes Philomena a less extravagant but equally worthy addition to this year’s Best Picture nominees.

To me, this movie was all about forgiveness.  Dench's performance as the unwavering Catholic despite the fact that nuns stole her child.  At times her devotion is upsetting to both Steve Coogan and the audience.  You don't know if you want to slap some sense into Philomena or kick some nun ass.  Philomena's search for her son is really an amazing story and it's even more amazing because it's based on a real story.  I will tell you one thing, if you begin this movie thinking that Steve Coogan is Judi Dench's son, he's not… let's just get that out of the way.  Like Tim said, it's so nice to see Coogan in a serious role… even though we're watching Hamlet 2 as we are writing this.  Philomena is actually hard to watch but it's a beautiful story.   Go rent it, it comes on March 3rd.  How do I know this?  Well, what Tim doesn't mention above is how psycho I got about seeing this movie.  I'm not kidding you, when I went to Fandango.com to see the nearest showing and it was in Idaho.  I was planning on making a trip… I even emailed the owners of the movie theaters in town trying to convince them to bring Philomena to theaters.  Luckily, it worked out.  But I wasn't going to give up!  Just like Philomena!

There are flashbacks which are done with "home movies". Some of these were created for the film but some of them are from actual footage of her real son.

Philomena: And after I had the sex, I thought anything that feels so lovely must be wrong.

Martin Sixsmith: Fucking Catholics.