Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on March 2014

Until the middle of the last century, the Irish Catholic Church rather inhumanely took in unwed mothers-to-be, separated them from their newborns, subjected them to years of unpaid labor and sold the babies to Americans for profit. One such mother (true story) was Philomena Lee (Judi Dench) a tough but guileless woman who, decades later, is making inquiries and running into a lot of Catholic stonewalling. Her plight comes to the attention of between-jobs journalist and full-time cynic Martin Sixsmith (Steve Coogan), and a sort of low-key, mismatched-buddies story is born, a character-based road-trip detective tale that takes the two to Washington D.C. in search of who her son turned out to be. Hard to make a movie on such a tragic subject that’s not a downer. But Stephen Frears (Prick Up Your Ears, High Fidelity, The Queen) manages, with a minimum of emotional manipulation (and with the help of co-writer Coogan’s dry humor), to come up with a movie that’s affecting, edifying and endearing. Funny, even. And I can’t overlook one satisfying lambasting of the Church and its pious practices. But for all that, this is about squaring one’s faith with the misdeeds of organized religion. (98 min)