You won't be disappointed!

Really Surprised!

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

'Philomena' tells the fascinating true story of Philomena Lee and her 50 year search for her son, who was given away against her will by Catholic nuns. The film follows Philomena and a journalist, Martin Sixsmith, who assists her in her attempt to locate her missing son.Everything about this film is excellent. Judi Dench delivers an outstanding, heartfelt and I would say Oscar-worthy performance as Philomena. The rest of the cast, including Steve Coogan as Martin Sixsmith, are also excellent. A story like Philomena's deserves the very best script and acting, and I'm pleased they did the story justice.Overall, 'Philomena' is an excellent biographical film that I would highly recommend. No fake Hollywood nonsense, just a real story told exactly how it should be. 'Philomena' is a fascinating film.

I think that Philomena is in many ways comparable to Vertigo, the classic 1957 Hitchcock movie. Let's see in what they are different. Vertigo is fictional. Its character, Scottie, is a middle age weary, depressed man while Philomena is a real senior citizen who is some kind of an idealist person. I found a similarity in the sense that both characters are victims of tragedies that have hurt them tremendously and marked out their life. Both tragedies were committed by evildoers not by natural disasters. Scottie and Philomena are characters involved in searches looking for answers that may heal their scars. Both characters are complemented by another person in their search. They founded their partners by chance. Unlikely Philomena, Scottie's partnership is dark and mysterious. Phil's partnership is unambiguous although non symmetrical. Martin would be professionally helpful to her but his heart is not fully into this pursuit. He is wounded after a setback related to his job as a high roller political journalist and at this point he is cynical and pessimistic. Both movies are emotionally complicated stories involving a travel to the past and in both cases it was resolved with subtlety, ability and talent. Philomena is actually a road movie since many of the leads are quite far apart. This implies a close interacting between Phil and Martin even more intense when we add the chasing of leads which entails new emotional brinks due to the hopes, doubts and uncertainty involved. Of course I am not going to get into details but there are few finding and leads that enhances the story. Movies which are inquisitive and go into obscure paths, to the heart of a tragedy, into places where individuals have been gravely injured are very hard to realize. When the backbone of a story is the theft of a toddler by catholic nuns is very hard to create art while holding anger, fury and sentimentality. Evildoers holding positions of power are common material for movies but you need a special vision to make them entertaining. Stephen Frears counted with an apt cast and crew. The adapted script is excellent. If you are familiar at all with Judi Dench's work, you can predict the quality of any of her roles but this time Dame Judi fleshed out Philomena with a tenderness that expresses a unique, real human being. Another outstanding performance.Steve Coogan very aptly expressed the nature of his character and the evolution from quiet cynicism to open, sincere anger. Stephen Frears implemented and balanced the golden elements available for this film. He creates an atmosphere that expresses the points of view of Philomena and builds a sequence of images and dialog that keep us our attention intact. As a director he took the job of master storyteller and excels at it.

The mystery of a woman searching for her lost child of 50 years; an overly polite old lady and a disgraced former journalist on an intercontinental journey; an uncovered scandal in the Catholic Church — "Philomena" has it all, and that's before you count Dame Judi Dench.Based on "The Lost Child of Philomena Lee" by Martin Sixsmith, the story follows Sixsmith's journey with Lee to find her son, Anthony, who was taken from her and put up for adoption in the 1950s by the nuns who took her in (and countless other young mothers with unplanned pregnancies whose families shunned them).Steve Coogan stars as Sixsmith, the journalist who lost his job as communications director for Britain's Department for Transport as a result of a leaked email scandal. Encouraged to write a human interest piece as a bit of a rebound for his writing career, he learns of Philomena's story from her daughter (Anna Maxwell Martin). Intrigued enough, Martin and Philomena revisit her old convent and travel to America in hopes they can track Anthony down.Their journey contains both inspiration and anger, suspense and poignance, humor and heartbreak. It's one of those perfect stories and Coogan and co-writer Jeff Pope capture it with an equaling compelling script that balances the wide range of tones and emotions, transitioning through them with elegance.Yet "Philomena" has plenty to say that's not on the page. The team of Dench and director Stephen Frears ("The Queen") prove as formidable as you'd imagine. Mostly it's Frears giving way to Dench's masterful performance, but he shows expert judgment in when to lean on his ace. Few can quietly contemplate on screen like Dench, pulling us into her character's thoughts and allowing us to settle easily into Philomena's worldview. This woman has been haunted every day by the child that was taken from her more than 50 years ago, and we get to not only follow her as she discovers the truth, but watch as she reckons with that information. How she processes the complex emotions that pour out of this story compared to how Martin processes them compared to how we as viewers process them is a significant piece of what resonates so fiercely about "Philomena."As often as Frears has cause to focus in on Dench's watery blue eyes, however, there's a healthy dose of comedy, no doubt thanks to Coogan's involvement. It all serves to give us a complete portrait of Philomena. She's principled but not angry, lost but devout, polite but foul-mouthed, easily pleased by simple things but not naive. Dench conveys them all in her performance, and it's as compelling to watch her go toe to toe with Coogan as it is to see how she'll handle the story's biggest moments.The story is so effortlessly good that it would be hard to mess it up, but the use of flashbacks in the beginning and also fake home video footage throughout slide us even deeper into Philomena's shoes. The combination of technique, writing and performance creates instantaneous investment in the story that lasts through the film's final moment. In fact, the film's only faults can be ascribed to not going deep enough into each of the story's many facets. More time could easily have been devoted to Martin's backstory, or the implications of these convents selling off children. Yet there's a certain beauty in limiting the scope of the film to this concrete stretch of time in which Martin and Philomena meet each other and set off searching for answers. "Philomena" could've easily lost its identity wandering into the many potential rabbit holes that emerge as the puzzle comes together piece by piece. Instead, the film focuses on an emotional, empathy-building, thought-provoking 98 minutes that stand testament to the powerful and invaluable role of stories.~Steven CThanks for reading! Visit Movie Muse Reviews for more

Finally! A movie about what went on in that time era.. a time of cruel hypocrisy, when unwed motherhood was akin to criminal activity.Judy Dench is amazing - she assume the role completely, and portrays the lifetime trauma that has affected everyone who has been a 'victim' of having to relinquish a child to the 'system' or, in this case, 'The Catholic Church'I found this movie heartbreaking, but at least I now have a sense of satisfaction that these atrocities have finally been brought out into the open. Adopted children who were told 'their mother didn't want them' are now given the opportunity to see what REALLY happened.