{"id":12686,"date":"2014-03-16T17:24:56","date_gmt":"2014-03-16T07:24:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/?p=12686"},"modified":"2014-05-03T19:00:04","modified_gmt":"2014-05-03T09:00:04","slug":"philomena","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/?p=12686","title":{"rendered":"Philomena"},"content":{"rendered":"

Of the ten films nominated for the Best Picture category in the 2014 Academy Awards, Philomena<\/em> was almost certainly the least prominent during the awards season.\u00a0 None of the actors were front runners for their respective categories, neither was director Stephen Frears and the low key nature of its subject matter meant it wasn’t really on the cards to get a look in for music, costume or anything else.\u00a0 In many ways, the film is not far removed from its star Philomena Lee.\u00a0 Quiet, introspective and not wanting to cause a fuss.<\/p>\n

We know the story of Philomena Lee thanks to the somewhat relunctant journalistic endeavours of Martin Sixsmith who is out of work after being unceremoniously dumped as a political advisor to the Labor Party.\u00a0 He aspires to return to work by writing about his passion – Russian history.\u00a0 At a dinner party, a caterer suggests he write a human interest story about a woman who is looking to reunite with her estranged son.\u00a0 Sixsmith initially scoffs at the idea but eventually relents.\u00a0 It is then that he is introduced to Philomena Lee.<\/p>\n

Lee’s story is a sad and incredulous.\u00a0 In the Fifties, she met a young man at a carnival and fell pregnant to him.\u00a0 Her father sends her away at to the Sean Ross Abbey in Ireland where she is put into manual labour by the nuns.\u00a0 Her son Anthony is kept at the premise but she is only allowed to visit him for strictly monitored one hour sessions.\u00a0 It is effectively a prison sentence.\u00a0 One day, without any notice and without her consent, the nuns send Anthony away to a family who adopt him.<\/p>\n

\"philomena\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Fifty years later, in present day, Sixsmith agrees to help Lee look for Michael.\u00a0 They are stonewalled and given no assistance by the nuns at Sean Ross Abbey who insist their records were lost in a fire.\u00a0 However some sniffing around at the local tavern yields some promising leads and eventually, Sixsmith uncovers that Anthony may have been taken by an American family across the Atlantic.<\/p>\n

I won’t spoil what happens when they travel there but it becomes clear that whether Philomena finds Anthony or not isn’t really what the film is about.\u00a0 Instead the film explores the philosophical differences between Sixsmith and Lee.\u00a0 Sixsmith is an atheist.\u00a0 He is academically brilliant, full of self confidence and angry at the church for their treatment of Lee and other women like her.\u00a0 Lee on the other hand is a simple soul, still a practising Catholic and at times, she still seems mentally beholden to the nuns at Sean Ross Abbey.\u00a0 Even when they don’t budge to help her look for her son, she is polite, respectful and keeps her composure.<\/p>\n

The film comes to a head in a final scene when Philomena Lee, Martin Sixsmith and the head nun from the Fifties, Sister Hildegaard, who was responsible for sending Anthony away, meet at the abbey.\u00a0 Sixsmith, full of indignant bluster, loses his composure and shames the nun for her actions.\u00a0 Sister Hildegaard, for her part, remains unrepentant.\u00a0 She scolds Philomena and ‘girls like her’ for falling pregnant out of wedlock.\u00a0 It is Philomena who is the voice of reason and the level headed one in the exchange.\u00a0 She sees no value in remaining angry or bitter at Sister Hildegaard.\u00a0 She offers forgiveness and wants to move on with her life.\u00a0 She also strengthens her own resolve and after initially waivering on the idea of having her story told, she decides the church’s actions should be shared publically, and she gives her consent to Sixsmith to publish the book about their investigation because “people should know what happened there”.<\/p>\n

Philomena<\/em> is a surprisingly affecting and moving film.\u00a0 Steve Coogan and Judy Dench are excellent as Martin Sixsmith and Philomena Lee respectively and the film hits all the right notes in blending humour and drama.\u00a0 Philomena Lee’s story is a tragic one but the film finds the scope not just to tell the tale on its own merits but invites the audience to consider their own values, spiritual beliefs and prejudices.\u00a0 Watching the film, I shared most of Sixsmith’s observations about Philomena and the church and was right there with him when he began berating Sister Hildegaard for what she had done.\u00a0 But Philomena’s incredible generosity in forgiving the nuns and pragmatic view on enjoying the time left in her life without being consumed by anger had me reconsidering my viewpoint when I thought I had all the answers.\u00a0 For this reason, I found Philomena<\/em> to be a clever, thought-provoking film that provides nourishment for the soul.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Have mercy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":12688,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[1781,1780,1782],"class_list":["post-12686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-films","tag-judy-dench","tag-philomena","tag-steve-coogan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12686"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12686\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14060,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12686\/revisions\/14060"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}