Another human interest story

Philomena

Crit

If we were making a top ten list of the Roman Catholic Church's suckiest places and times, most of us would rank Spain of the late 14th and 15th centuries number 1, the U.S. in the late 20th century might be midtable somewhere, but surely there would be a place near the bottom for Ireland in the mid-1900s. Expanding on a secular tradition dating to the early 19th century, several Irish convents, under cover of Christian ministry, took in so-called Magdalenes--young women and girls whose commission of carnal sins had become manifest--and exploited the circumstances by engineering lucrative adoptions by wealthy Americans, and by binding the fallen women to years of indentured servitude.

This is not the first cinematic treatment of the scandal--The Magdalene Sisters (2002) was an angrymaking contemporary account--but it's the first that I'm aware of that looks back from the recent past, through the barely fictionalized perspective of a woman (happened to read this while waiting for the film to start) encountering after-the-fact stonewalling eerily similar to another on the top ten list imagined above. And it's certainly the only one directed by Stephen Frears with Judi Dench as the questing mother and Steve Coogan as the cynical journalist who allies himself with her. Subtle? Not particularly. Manipulative? Well, yeah. Did I mind? Not a bit of it.

Trailers

• One Chance--Heartwarming true story of a fat opera lover who scores on a talent show.
• Heaven Is for Real--Heartwarming true story of an adorable little boy who makes an eschatological round trip.
• Labor Day--Heartwarming Joyce Maynard story about a romance between an escaped con (Josh Brolin) and a single mother (Kate Winslet).