| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| BaftaBaby |
Posted - 11/11/2013 : 17:54:32
Everyone in the UK knows who Steve Coogan is, and many abroad do too. But anyone who's admired the range of his talent as a writer, comic, and actor may be surprised at his sheer skill and humanity in this "inspired by a true story".
He's written the screenplay and his production company is behind the film.
He plays a quasi-notorious UK broadcast journo whose BBC career was snipped short when complaints were received about something he never said. We meet him several years later as he's floundering about on his metaphorical beach trying to get back to his natural element - in his case assignment to a story.
An unlikely one, given his passions for history and politics, drops in his lap in the form of an elderly, neat, Irish former nurse called Philomena. Her life's obsession has been to trace or at least understand the disappearance of a baby. Her baby. Birthed when she was 15, and snatched away by the nuns who ran the home for such sinners.
Early in the 1970s, one of the first actresses I remember being in open-mouthed admiration of on the English stage was Judi Dench in Midsummer Night's Dream. Since then, of course, she's delighted a growing number of film-goers as some widely divergent characters.
Both Coogan and Dench, playing people who'd never find much in common, become engrossed in a game of acting tennis. Batting the moments back and forth with equal style and wit and, above all, perfect timing.
Director Stephen Frears wisely allows these two to pick their way through a forest of the elusive past, keeping clear the power of the drama shaped into truth, whatever the facts.
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