"Philomena" is a searing true story of venal cruelty by the Irish Catholic Church, which for decades punished girls "guilty" of unmarried sex by indentured service in laundries and by handing over their children to foreign "donors." The title character, feisty and blunt but also deeply sentimental and religious, believed for fifty years that it was a sin to even speak of her stolen child. The journalist who helps her search for the boy is disillusioned, a hater of euphemism and an atheist. The engaging contrast of sensibilities is superbly portrayed by Dench as Philomena Lee and Coogan as the journalist Martin Sixsmith. Their investigation reveals a punitive self-serving cover-up by the Church. The film offers another, unspoken story to those who care to find it: religion as Stockholm syndrome, whose victims are psychologically tortured with visions of hellfire and consoled with grace for forgiving abusers.
Rita Freed
Rita Freed