My wife and I watched "Philomena" last night. It's an excellent film with top-notch acting, an engaging story and poignant humor.
The story lays bare difficulties which face humanity on many physical and spiritual levels - love, anger, acceptance and forgiveness.
I was displeased with Stephen Frears' generalized and broad attacks on the Catholic faith. While I'm not a regular practitioner, I am certain I have a better understanding than he does of what it means to be, and act, Catholic.
His broadsides against the Church and God should have been directed at individuals within the Church itself, or the misunderstandings of the nature of God. Instead he engaged a series of stereotypical and repetitive misconceptions which are common. His most egregious being a comparison of God to terrorists by discussing how many people died in an earthquake in Turkey. Getting past this requires an understanding this is a critical part of developing the story, however acidic the commentary employed.
To Frears' film-making credit, Philomena comes across as a truly great person - devout, loving, and understanding what being Catholic really means, despite having had to deal with great tragedy and hardship. Her difficulties often were by the hand of individuals who called themselves tools of God.
She epitomizes all that is good and right in the human condition - making few demands of anybody, finding great joy in life, and forgiving those who wronged her, intentionally or otherwise. She recognizes her shortcomings and errors, and accepts them for what they are. She pushes on through life bravely, assured in her relationship with God and her faith. As Stephen Frears' character attempts to snarkily put her down, her 'ignorance' instead puts him in his place and he comes to learn that despite being a respected public personality with a broad arc of learning, he still has much to learn from people he holds in low regard.
I recommend this film, because it is great in many ways, and has only one very bad flaw that is necessary to the story, yet is overcome by the uplifting nature of the main character.
