Forgiveness over Hatred - Philomena Review *SPOILER ALERT*

Just to take a break from writing about my winter break journey, I'm going to share my review of one of the movies I watched on the last week of the break. I got to see this movie on my own in a smaller scaled cinema, as I'm pretty sure the movie isn't considered a mainstream for people of my age (I'm convinced non of my friends are interested to see it).

If you guys aren't familiar with the movie Philomena, you should it look it up. As of now, the movie has been earning abundant accolades, particularly on Best Actress category for its leading lady, Judi Dench. Even this morning, it was announced that the movie garnered four Academy Award nominations. Anyway, it's based on a true story which was later adapted into a book by Martin Sixsmith, and later adapted into the big screen last year. The story followed an elderly woman named Philomena Lee. Having grown up without her parents, she spent her teenage years convent in Roscrea, Ireland, which literally means she was raised in a strong religious upbringing. At one point, she fell for a young man and later found herself pregnant.

She got to give birth to the baby in the convent and even watched her son – named Anthony – grow up as a toddler. One day, strangers came to adopt Anthony and took him away from Philomena. Fifty years later, still haunted with the whereabouts and what has become of Anthony, Philomena determined to look for his long lost son. She met up with Martin Sixsmith (played wittily by Steve Coogan), a devastated journalist that was recently fired from his job. Martin hesitated to write about Philomena's story at first, as the “human interest” story wasn't into his expertise, but he changed his mind and decided to write about Philomena's story as well as helping her find her son.

The movie that ran for 95 minutes was beautifully directed by Stephen Frears, who was known for his other achievement The Queen eight years ago. The lines didn't feel forced or stiff, and I find this challenging as the nature of the original subject matter is considered pretty serious. However, the filmmakers seemed like they attempted to melt it slightly and turn a serious topic into a lighter, heartwarming story. The lines were delivered perfectly by the strong chemistry between Judi Dench's and Steve Coogan's characters. It convinced me that the filmmakers are aware of the story's serious nature but decided to break the ice in the audience by slipping in Big Momma's House references.

Another aspect that I wanted to point out and that I really adore, are the characterizations of Philomena and Martin Sixsmith. They clearly contrast each other, and we can see how the relationship between them grew throughout the movie. Philomena is depicted as an old-fashioned, traditional, yet a sweet, charming, and naïve elderly woman. Her strong religious upbringing also makes her a patient, humble, and reserved person. Clearly, we might even know someone that had those qualities. The audience and I laughed lightly when Philomena thought she had to pay for the drink on the plane, or when she offered Sixsmith another pair of slippers she found in her hotel room because she thought Sixsmith wouldn't have a pair of slippers in his own room. Another scene showed her having a nice interaction with the hotel restaurant staff. “Have you been to Mexico? I heard it's lovely, apart from the kidnappings.” The line might sound offensive, but it really showed how innocent she was. Her innocence is what makes her character likeable.

On the other hand, Martin Sixsmith is a completely different persona. We discover in the movie that he was an atheist, background that later explained his logical thinking. He was a man of reasons. His blunt thoughts and questions made the convent community uncomfortable during his and Philomena's visit (He went on asking, more like pushing, the convent nuns into spilling Anthony's whereabouts, thanks to his journalism background). He was also very skeptical at first, I assume this might be a result of being surrounded in a tight, intense, and life-in-a-fast-lane lifestyle of the journalism industry – a condition that eventually led him to being fired. Anyway, unlike Philomena who is portrayed to be very goodhearted to people around her, Sixsmith is very rigid. He doesn't greet nor want to chitchat with people. He rarely smiled, and very focused in his job.

What happened when the two different personas meet? Of course, a very interesting and dynamic relationship would occur. There are rarely any conflicts between Sixsmith and Philomena. I counted that there were about two conflicts between them at least, but Philomena's genuine nature somehow always prevented them from conflicts. At one point in a hotel restaurant, Sixsmith was so focused on doing a research on his computer when a waitress came to him and explained about the buffet procedure. Sixsmith grumpily dismissed her, but Philomena pointed out that the waitress was being nice, and he should be nice to her too. It was implied that Philomena was a pacifist due to her upbringing and she was being nice to others to prevent any kinds of conflict.

Before we got to the point where Sixsmith and Philomena's contrasting personas finally came to a clash, I wanted to spill a bit of spoiler. You might want to skip this one if you're planning on watching the movie.

*SPOILER ALERT*

Don't move on if you want to see the movie

Basically, after Sixsmith agreed to help Philomena find her son, he accompanied Philomena to the convent and asked about where her son was, but one of the nuns stated that they lost all the records in a fire, but luckily, Sixsmith later found out that most children that were taken from the Irish convent were brought to America. Up to this point, they had no idea about the specific whereabouts of Anthony. Philomena and Sixsmith then left to the US. Sixsmith later found out that Anthony was renamed Michael Hess, who already passed away years before. Throughout his life, Michael/Anthony served as a politician for the Republican Party. At this point, we could see how vulnerable this Philomena character could be, knowing that the child she longed to meet had gone. She even went as close as giving up and going back to Ireland. Following the grief, she was then haunted with the question whether Michael/Anthony had ever thought of her. In the end, through Michael/Anthony's partner (Philomena discovered he was gay and accepted the fact), Philomena and Sixsmith discovered that he had always wanted to know about his birth mother, even to the point of visiting Roscrea, but the nuns didn't give out information about her mother and simply told him that his mother, Philomena, abandoned him. At the end of his life, he wanted to come back to Ireland and that sort of came true, as he was eventually buried in Roscrea.

This fact struck both Sixsmith and Philomena. Now we – even the audience – might judge that the nuns were the “bad guys” here. As if they were purposely trying to keep Philomena away from his son, and vice versa, because we remember that the nuns in the convent said all the adoption records were gone in a fire. When Sixsmith and Philomena came back to Roscrea convent, Sixsmith went on to confront one of the elder nuns that were present during the adoption, accusing her why she didn't want to tell the truth to Philomena and apologized to her.

This climax scene is where Philomena and Sixsmith's contrasting natures kicked in again. Sixsmith was a man of reason and he could represent just anyone else would do in real life when they encountered an issue. What would you do if someone did something wrong to you? You would confront that person of course. Sixsmith was being realistic, and so would we in that condition. If we were Sixsmith, we would push the nun into apologizing to Philomena. Sixsmith was driven by emotions that he nearly knocked the elder nun off her wheelchair, but Philomena intervened and said that she forgave the nun.

*SPOILER ENDS*

You may move on

Often times, we were unaware that just by forgiving people could actually solve a problem. Some people were too driven by emotions they even set forgiveness aside. Revenge could be a result of it. Actually when I watched this scene, I thought that if I were Philomena, I don't think I could ever forgive someone so easily who had tried to keep my relative away from me, and even lied to him on purpose. I think anyone else would realistically have this sense, that we would never forgive someone so easily like it would solve the problem; as if it would put us at ease like everything is done just like that. But Philomena pointed out afterwards that she didn't want to be like Sixsmith, implying that hating the nun “must be exhausting”. Those lines are like a slap in the face. Hatred fulfills our rage on something, but we were unaware that it is exhausting at the same time. We get nothing out of hatred than even more hatred. It leads to an never-ending situation with no solution. Hatred will make us feel no better. It will benefit nor the person we hate or ourselves. It's truly a waste of time, and energy, and yes, Philomena was right by pointing out that it was exhausting.

Forgiveness triumphs over all in this context. Philomena walked out in peace shortly after forgiving the nun, who pointed out that the young Philomena deserved to be kept away from her son the punishment of her action (being pregnant out of wedlock).

The movie was criticized briefly for its anti-Christian value, which I believe is represented by the character Martin Sixsmith, who is clearly an Atheist and speaks up his mind, even making a blasphemous remark at one point to the elder nun. I believe the anti-Christianity protest brought up against the movie is also because the movie clearly revealed the dirty jobs of what a convent would do (selling of kids to American couples and keeping the kids away from their birth mothers). On the other hand, I believe that the movie intends to bring exactly the opposite message at the end of the movie, that people with religions tend to be more forgiving and avoid conflicts, and they always God to hold on to, while people with no religions tend to rely themselves on logic and reasons, which is actually true too. Sixsmith's character exists to provide that aspect, as his values deeply contrast those of Philomena's, who decides to forgive instead of avenge the elder nun – dubbed by Sixsmith as the “evil nuns”. I'm not saying I'm against any of beliefs or non-beliefs represented in the movie. I have a religion but I also depend myself on logic and reasons.

After I watched this movie, I start to root on Judi Dench for her portrayal as Philomena at the Oscars, but then she has to face Cate Blanchett, the strongest contender and probably a front runner in this award. Anyway,  that's it for my lengthy review. Thank you for taking time to read it.

Pictures belong to The Weinstein Company distributed by Yahoo! Movies