Philomena Lee (Judi Dench) reveals to her daughter (Anna Maxwell Martin) that 50 years ago she had a son who was taken from her by the Catholic church. Coincidentally her daughter then overhears a conversation at a party she's working at, in which depressed former spin doctor Martin Sixsmith (Steve Coogan) expresses an interest in writing a "human interest" story.


Martin meets with Philomena, and somewhat reluctantly, travels with her back to the convent and beyond, to help discover what happened to her child.


What makes this film so wonderful is the under-stated concessions to the banality of reality. Whether it's through comedy, such as Sixsmith's first meeting with Philomena at her favourite restaurant; "I've never been to a Harvester before." Or how plot twists and devastating revelations occur in the most inoccuous of surroundings at the most inconvenient of times. Or whether it's how the banality of certain beliefs can be the cause of terrible anguish upon one person's life, and then the almost frustrating calm with which things are resolved.


In many respects, more than a search for a lost child, this is a "buddy movie", jaded Sixsmith who keeps the world at a distance, making pithy jokes out of situations in order to avoid confrontation and seethes with an undercurrent of anger, finding himself confronted by Philomena's warm, deceptively simple and - to Sixsmith - naive outlook. His interest in her story seems to be a conduit for his own fury at his failings and frustrations, and it's to the film's credit that he is never particularly changed - in the Hollywood sense - by the journey.


The screenplay by Steve Coogan and Jeff Pope, based on the real Sixsmith's account of the true story, is a delight, never manipulating the audience but managing to draw out laughter, tears and leave you with a thoughtful mixture of emotions, a sense of resolution but also of great, enduring injustice. Whilst Stephen (High Fidelity) Frears directs with a similar lack of restraint, using various film stock filters in flashback whilst keeping things pleasingly bland in the film's present.


Performance-wise, Dench gets the showier role and is as marvellous as she invariably always is, whilst Coogan plays a curious and difficult mix of being our conduit to the story, but also unlikable in a relatable fashion.


Overall, this is a charming story, delivered with under-stated panache, that shines a light - for a broad audience - on a shameful and upsetting part of the Catholic church's all-too-recent history.

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