Movie: Philomena

I've been to a lot of movies this year. So many that my local cinema palace has upgraded me to a VIP. I find it funny that it took almost to the last day of the year to get to probably the best movie of the year (in my humble opinion). Sure, Pacific Rim was pretty spectacular, but Philomena is the movie that stays in your mind  for much longer afterwards.

Firstly, I am a huge Steve Coogan fan. The guy's a genius. 24 Hour Party people is one of my favourite movies, even if some of the facts have been mixed up a little. In fact, Steve Coogan is the only reason I had any interest at all in Philomena. I was very excited to see that he wrote the script as well as playing the lead role. I had faith that he would inject just the right amount of humour into the dialogue, and he does. There was quite a bit of laughter from the good sized audience. They even laughed at a line in a particularly dramatic scene that I didn't think warranted a laugh.

A word of warning to Catholics. This movie is quite critical of the past behaviour of the Catholic Church. I myself was brought up in the Catholic religion (I completely rejected the entire thing many years ago now), so I was quite comfortable with the criticism (I agree with most of it. In the distant past they were guilty of some heinous crimes).

The plot is genius. If you don't know the basic story already, Steve plays an out of work journalist looking for an idea for a book. Nobody wants his Russian history book idea, so he reluctantly decides on a human interest story. He meets Philomena, who fifty years before, had done the wild thing with a boy, and got herself in the club. The nuns take her in, but sell her baby to some Americans. Steve the journalist agrees to help find her son after all these years. Of course, both the journalist and Philomena are changed by the journey. It's a riveting story, and each little bit is revealed as the story progresses. The twists and turns are fantastic. I'm a Sherlock Holmes/Agatha Christie/Jonathon Creek buff, and this script is worthy of any of those three, with the added bonus of it being based mainly on truth.

I'm sure glad I didn't read the book before seeing the movie. I just wonder how different the movie is compared to the book. No doubt there are differences, there always is. I really would like to read the book now to get the full story. It looks like it could be better than the movie.

The acting is terrific. Steve is great as the journalist, but Judy Dench is brilliant as Philomena. I smell an Oscar nomination.