Philomena

[BagelwithButter]

Oh goodness! Watched it tonight. Judi Dench and Steve Coogan were excellent. What a heartrending story, so sad. Apologies to any Catholics, but bloody f*ing nuns!

It is an incredible film. I cried a lot

Agree OP. Those nuns and the Church are responsible for abuse, human trafficking and mass murder on a grand scale.
Beautiful film, tragic story, sadly one of many.

Judi Dench deserved the Oscar for it.

Yes, tissues were out here too. Can't believe it's taken me so long to see it. Did Steve Coogan win any awards for it, thought he was really impressive and great script too.

I started a thread on Philomena way back in December 2013.
I thought it was so sad but it had really funny moments.
Steve Coogan was terrific.
The real Philomena is still alive and working on a campaign in Ireland - to allow adoptive people in Ireland get their original birth cert).
This has been a right for people in UK since the seventies !

You can't simply blame the religious orders, OP - this was an entire society conniving at this treatment of unmarried mothers and their children, and often their families who put them into the institutions in the first place.

Where were the fathers of those babies?
That's the real question.

I Loved this film.

Judi dench was amazing

The backstory is so sad but I think all religions were to blame in those days

I loved the film but found that compared to the book focused only on mum and skipped much of the son's life.

My mother is a gentle lovely woman who rarely swears but ask her about nuns and the air turns blue.
She was beaten by nuns in Eire most days for much of her childhood. She said in the entire school there were only about two nice ones.

That's the thing. It was society as a whole who colluded in shutting these young mothers away. BUT why did those nuns behave so horribly towards their charges - a few were sympathetic but the majority were horrendous.

And why the secrecy - the saddest bit in the film was when she saw that he had visited the home in Ireland and she could have had a chance to meet him if they hadn't continued to cover it up.

Bagel it was heartbreaking.
How could so called Christians do that to another human being.

A lot of reasons. We generally think of people who choose to be nuns as feeling a vocation, a call to serve God and do good, but a lot of those nuns were shunted off to the convent very young as a safe economic haven by their families in a rural economy with few opportunities for poorer girls who weren't considered marriageable - many weren't suited to the life or made happy by it, and they were sadistic because they were put in charge of women who had less power than them. They may even have believed they were doing good.

Also, because they could - look at the Milgram experiment. And Irish society backed them up, or at least looked away while using the Magdalene laundries to wash linen for prominent local businesses and institutions. Some generated big profits off free labour before the domestic washing machine. And the wealthy Catholic Americans who 'bought' children like Philomena's son also made significant donations to the orders. With the connivance of the state, which issued passports for the 'exported' children.

Yes, that's a huge part of it.
Being a nun in Ireland when my mother was a child was not a calling for most. Young women with no marriage prospects and a financial burden on their family were sent to the convent.
My mother was useful being on the only female once her mother died when mum was 11. She assumed the role of mother, cooking,mc leaning and being responsible for her male siblings.
Everyday she had to run home at lunch time, prepare lunch for her father and feed her brothers and then run back.
She had no time to eat but the distance was too far and she was regularly late. She was then beaten in spite of the nuns knowing exactly what had caused her lateness.
The church was more than responsible though - every Sunday attending mass required adding to the collection where the priest would announce each contribution. To not contribute, regardless of how terrible your financial state was considered shameful and sinful. So my mother would sit there weeping as my grandfather handed over money they couldn't afford knowing it meant she wouldn't be able to feed herself or her brothers again that week.
Her father was a piece of shit but was considered totally respectable because of the loudly announced "James Surname - 1 shilling" each week.
Institutionalised shitheadedness.

Wonderful film, Judy Dench is amazing as ever and Steve Coogan is brilliant.

And according to my Irish mother (now 87!), they read out the family name at mass if you didnt donate to the church, as well as if you did and that was really shameful

Amazing and gut wrenching film. I've only just seen it in the last couple of weeks.

choc I thought it was nice that the book and the film complement each other instead of trying to replace them, iyswim?

I thought both were wonderful, and totally heartbreaking.

It's a fabulous film & very painful to watch even with no personal connections

Re awards, it got masses of nominations but not many awards (except at Venice) - a couple for Steve Coogan for the screenplay though

(It was up against 12 years a slave at the Oscars)

Details here

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_accolades_received_by_Philomena_%28film%29

Really interesting posts, Ceart and Pagwatch.Good points about how some were pushed into being nuns - what an awful fate that must have been to a young girl who dreamt of a different life.

How appalling too that the priests shamed people into giving collection money when they must have known how near the poverty line families were in their parishes.

Everything CeartGoLeor has said, with the addition of, 'pergatory on earth', ie spending your time on earth being punished for your sins so nuns were asked about their interests and then sent to do the opposite.

SO you had nuns who wanted to look after old people sent to be teachers.

I knew a nun who retired and was moved from her home of over fifty years just because they didn't want her to be too comfortable in her retirement.
And they called themselves Christians.
It's different now I think.

Pag such a moving post.

Philomena had me and MIL and my aunt in floods of tears. MIL never cries.