Based on Martin Sixsmith’s The Lost Child of Philomena Lee, Stephen Frears’ Philomena takes the emphasis off the child and puts it squarely on his mother. Writer-producer and co-star, Steve Coogan, not Frears, is clearly the auteur on this one. He and his co-writer, Jeff Pope, collapse about 80% of the book into a few moments in which Anthony Lee/Michael Hess’s life partner (Peter Hermann) shows Coogan (as Sixsmith) and Judi Dench (as Philomena) home movies summoning up the man’s life. The often brilliant Frears (Prick Up Your Ears; Dangerous Liaisons; The Grifters; The Queen) is just a director for hire on this one, given the reins by the egomaniacal Coogan because he says in interviews he didn’t want to tell Dench what to do.

Most of the film is filled with scenes of Coogan and Dench bonding, Coogan putting Sixsmith into situations to build up his part. He treats the title character with a kind of benign condescension, turning her into something of a simpleton while trying to make her into everyone’s “granny”. The woman, a retired nurse living in the south of England, couldn’t possibly be as naïve as the character Coogan presents. Dench’s instinctive acting belies most of the silly dialogue which even includes a bizarre reference to Jayne Mansfield’s losing her head in her fatal car crash, especially odd since featured player Herrmann is married to Mansfield daughter, and survivor of that crash, Mariska Hargitay.

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