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Movie Love

 "Philomena" is an odd-couple story. A cynical journalist semi-randomly meets an old lady whose son was robbed from her by the Catholic Church. Then, like detectives, the two new friends go off in search of the son.

One would expect the search to be moderately challenging, but not impossible: Hasn't the Church kept records? No, a mysterious fire has interceded. Also, you can't talk to the elderly nuns who might remember Catholic misdeeds from the fifties and sixties; these nuns are locked away like Mrs. Rochester in shadowy hallways.

Bizarrely, at an Irish bar, our heroes discover that the Church actually sold abducted babies to wealthy Americans mid-century. This leads to an intercontinental flight, and then one new horror after another: The full discovery of the Church's wrongdoing is saved for the climactic scene.

"Philomena" won many awards, and it nearly won a Best Picture Oscar; that's partly because of the script, which manages to be a serious investigation of evil and forgiveness, while also seeming comedic. (In one scene, Philomena discovers that her son is gay....We expect her to make a fuss, but she shrugs and says, "Actually, I'd imagined he might be bi-curious....")

My husband and I landed on "Philomena" because we love the director, Stephen Frears; we loved his equally-great miniseries, "A Very English Scandal." Frears tells grand stories about world-historical shifts, but he also has an eye for the absurd: a pet dog's role in a botched assassination, a crusading Irishwoman who takes a break from her heroic work to give a rhapsodic speech about a hotel buffet.....

I'm having a "Frears re-encounter"..... and I'm thinking about "The Grifters" ....or "Dangerous Liaisons" ....maybe next....
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