Philomena

The story of the Magdalene laundries is not exactly a chapter of Irish history that anyone wants to hang on a wall. For more than 200 years, the Magdalene laundries were an asylum engineered to incarcerate young girls who were either promiscuous or prostitutes or the victims of rape. It was little more than a sweatshop in which the girls were forced into hard labor – usually doing laundry - for a certain term and were regarded like inmates. These asylums were sanctioned by the Catholic Church, operated by nuns and privately funded by the government. Many girls were guilty of nothing. Some were pregnant and had children and were only allowed to see their children for an hour a day. Even still, a child could be adopted and sent away without the mother's knowledge or consent. You should know that this is not a story out of The Dark Ages. In fact, the very last of the Magdalene Laundries closed its doors in 1996.
Don't panic, though. Stephen Frear's film Philomena is not an expose of the Magdalene laundries. That story has already been told in Peter Mullan's hard-bitten 2003 drama The Magdalene Sisters. They do, however, serve as a backdrop to the story of one person whose life was affected, for better and for worse, by her time locked away behind the walls of the laundries.
Philomena tells the story of Philomena Lee, an Irish catholic woman who spent most of her life regretting one fateful event that never left her heart. A half century ago Philomena made a mistake, the consequences of which have haunted her ever since. Back in 1951, she was a teenager. She went to a carnival. She met a boy. Things got serious. Nine months later she was living in Sean Ross Abbey in Roscrea where she gave birth to a son she named Anthony. Later, she was forced to stand by helplessly as her son was adopted by an American couple. Philomena, a devout Catholic, believed that her separation from her son was penance for her sin. Yet, it is something that she has never come to terms with. Half a century later, her sad eyes are a window into painful memories and regret.
Philomena, played in a lovely performance by Judi Dench, wants to know what ever happened to her son, and finds herself in the company of an out-of-work BBC reporter named Martin Sixsmith (Steve Coogan, who co-wrote the film) who, at first, sees the old girl's story as a sellable human interest piece. Anyone with eyes can see that she is much more than just a sound bite. She's warm-hearted, a bit naïve, with a stubborn resolve, yet she's not a standard crabby old bat. She's a cozy soul with a twee Irish accent and too often the perpetrator of TMI.
At first, Martin is purely professional, but as the deep wounds of Philomena's story unearth, he finds himself taking it personally. He is at odds with her passionate faith, because he himself is a newly-minted atheist. He labels himself confidently, but we sense that he hasn't completely rid himself of all doubts. The two are not on equal ground. Martin's mind is a flurry of intellectual cynicism. He's a college-educated journalist who seems to have a quip, an aside, and an answer for just about everything. Philomena, meanwhile, is earnest and straightforward. She sees the world in terms that are purely black and white.
The search for Philomena's son becomes an awakening for both she and Martin. Travelling from rural Ireland to England and to American, the two dig up bits and pieces about Anthony, some of which are a relief, others are painful. What she finds will not be revealed here, except to say that it is not what we expect. Little by little, bit by bit, information about her son comes to light; yet, all Philomena really wants to know is if he ever wondered about her.
What is interesting about Philomena is that this is not a hard, maudlin melodrama. Frears allows a good deal of humor, especially in regards to Philomena's awakening to the rude shocks of the modern world. She's surprisingly calm, especially in her attitude about the sexual encounter that produced her son.
Judi Dench, whose presence in a film is welcomed no matter what she's doing, gives one of her best performances as a woman whose eyes betray a weary heart. Through the years, her missing child has never left her mind or her heart, yet the experience hasn't destroyed her spirit. She is a woman devoted to God, un-embittered by her experience that keeps her mind on the task and won't allow herself to be pushed into outbursts of emotion.
The outbursts are reserved for her travelling companion. Martin reacts more or less the way we would. He's outraged by what he learns about Philomena's experience. He's a man who has slipped away from God in the cold of a brutal world (remember, he's a journalist) and he can't understand her unbending faith. You expect a film that is emotional, but you don't expect one that brings in questions of faith and the meaning of God. During one roadside rant about the meaning of God, he asks her if she really believes all that she claims, and he is stunned by her straightforward, "Yes." Philomena is a very moving film. It is touching when it needs to be, humorous when it's appropriate and comes to an ending that never feels like a manipulation. If there is one weakness it is probably that it leaves several questions unanswered. Those are difficult to discuss without spoilers, but you walk out in deep discussions over some of the issues it raises. This is a beautiful film about the chasms of time, the measure of lingering heartache and the manner in which old wound are dealt with.

Tamara Drewe

It's fairly simple: Where there's peace and quiet, you need a fog-horn scandal. Where there's a social camaraderie, one needs moral gravity. Where there are secrets and lies, there has to be an epiphany, a breaking-point, most importantly, a conflict. Ewedown, an idyllic little English countryside village where writers retreat to seek inspiration, peace and quiet might seem like the perfect cup of coffee served with an unswilled dollop of cream, fresh enough for a little bit of chocolate sauce to turn it into a flavour pot. The sauce comes in the form of Tamara Drewe, a swell-looking urban beauty fresh from a very successful nosejob, who has come back to the house where she grew up, in order to try and sell it off. Apparently, the younger Tamara happened to be a shy village girl, conscious of her pug-nosed appearance, while still garnering some sympathizing love both from a childhood friend, Andy and an older, adulterer-extraordinaire, Nicholas, a famous suspense author in his own right who is now managing the writer's retreat along with his wife Beth (Tamsin Greig), a long-time sufferer of her husband's devious ways.

Into this little community, fits Glen McCreavy, an insecure american who is waiting for a breakthrough in his writing career, at a pretty late point in his life. Glen is accomodated as a guest in Nicholas' retreat, which in itself seems more than capable of providing enough insipiration to start writing.

So into this pastoral oasis of calm drops in our eponymous Miss Drewe, all urbanised and devoid of shyness, charged with sexual aura, poised to short-circuit any feeling of innocence in this village. To complicate things, there are two local school girls, Jodie and Casey, that hang around in the bus stop shelter. They are the eyes and the ears of the town. They know more for their young years than most of the older folks. Jodie and Casey will ultimately create such havoc in the lives of the older people, no one would suspect by looking at their innocent demeanor. Their sole aim lies in getting to meet (maybe even bed) the local rock band’s drummer, Ben Sergeant. And when Ben gets involved with Tamara in a passionate affair, he is unwittingly drawn into the village, igniting the hopes if the girls and setting forth a snowballing chain of events, which soon ends up with pretty dire consequences. The final scene is dramatic and violent and a rather rough justice is done – not all of the characters lives happily ever after. Indeed arguably none of them emerges unscathed from the story. The film is part romp, part morality tale and part mild social commentary. The story is an amoral one – certainly by the conventional mores that well-bred country folk might like to assert they follow. But such pomposity and hypocrisy is rather nicely pricked – just like Thomas Hardy once did with his slightly shocking tale of nineteenth century double standards.

Director Stephen Frears has been making interesting cinematic choices for over twenty years and is well versed in comedy, so is well at home setting the tone, flitting between frothy and bawdy, but there was more to the source material than that and thankfully Frears isn't afraid to explore some of these darker areas as well, bringing a more genuine sense of emotion in the process. While not quite as dark as the original story, there's enough here to give serious balance, and the result is a rather rewarding concoction that might leave you smiling or pondering, but should certainly leave you satisfied.
There was superb characterisation by a first rate cast in a subversive story that played with the stock characters that stories in English villages always have and made some real points about what is happening in these communities and about peoples lives and how selfish actions and jokey 'messing' can have big consequences in other people's lives.

There are some issues affecting rural England, like rich city flock buying houses and making villages too expensive to live in and boredom for young people: but it is hardly a political piece.