Philomena (2013)

This movie is based on a true story about an elderly Irish woman searching for the toddler son that she was forced to give up for adoption as an unwed teen living in a convent run by pious nuns who thought all the pain their charges endured was entirely deserved. The movie could be terribly dreary, but it is not.  Most of its pleasures come from the way it confounds expectations.

Philomena (played masterfully by Judi Dench) is a middle class woman with common tastes.  She dresses practically, does not pass up a free meal, and is happy in her life of family and romance novels except for one thing.  She unwillingly gave up her three year old son and on his 50th birthday, she tells her daughter her guilty secret.  She gets help in her quest from Martin Sixsmith (acerbically played by Steve Coogan with just the right mix of irreverance for the church and sympathy for Philomena), a recently unemployed reporter who remains convinced that he is destined for greater things, just not right at the moment, when he is riding our a political maelstrom that got him fired.

Martin agrees to help Philomena and his cynicism balances her optimism beautifully.  They start at the convent where while they claim that all papers related to what happened to adopted children were burned in a 'fire', the papers demonstrating that the girls willingly relinquished their children and all future claim on them remain intact.  Sixsmith tries to get access to a nun who was there at the time Philomena was but is blocked--luckily, the bar maid at the local pub gives them a clue to look in America.

The story has a bittersweet ending, and not one that exonertes the church in any way.  The discovery of a mass burial of children at an Irish convent in the news recently only reinforces the evils of the past, but while Sixsmith damns them, Philomena forgives them.  It is a simple story that arouses complicated feelings in a very kind way.  Beautifully done.