Philomena

[Mistyglade]

I’m watching Philomena, I know I’m very late to the party but my goodness me. It has to be the best film I’ve ever seen.

Powerful isn’t it. I saw it a few years ago and read the book very recently (slightly different focus but also excellent).

It's an excellent film but shocking what those poor women were put through.

I thought it was patronising. Philomena is a comedy character based on someone’s idea of a not-too-bright Irish mammy archetype, and it leaves an incredibly condescending aftertaste.

I cried all the way through but considering I was one of those babies adopted from an unmarried mothers’ home in 1960s Ireland it’s not surprising it hit a nerve!

Such an emotional film. The continued cruelty was unbelievable. Yet another thing that you cannot fathom not only that it happened but the acceptance while it was happening (for those who were in the know).

Sticking to that theme area, I am looking forward to watching Small Things Like These soon.

Love Philomena. @Mothership4twomy DH found that harder to watch. I find The Magdalene Sisters very hard and much more brutal.

I find anything to do with the laundries and the Catholic Church hard to watch , it makes me so angry . I go through Tuam sometimes and think about all those babies in the septic tank. Only for Catherine Corless that would have been left swept under the rug.

It has been recently added to netflix and I just watched it. My goodness - this film hit me hard. The bond a little boy has with their mother is without doubt the strongest bond in human connection - its utterly beautiful to watch. As a dad I see it with my wife and son. The fact this sacred bond was ripped apart is just heart wrenching. The part that gets me and makes this such a beautiful story - he decided to be buried at the abbey. I am welling up just writing it but he wanted to be found by his mother - that bond was so strong - he wanted to be found by his mum 40 years later. He was found by her - utterly beautiful.

Good movie despite Coogan

I know Steve Coogan isn’t popular, I don’t know his back story but I have to give him credit for backing the film Philomena.
It shone another light on the awfulness of the Mother and Baby homes.

We blame the church and the state but the women were blamed back then 🥲
Where were the fathers of these babies !!!
So many of them ran for the hills.
How many of those babies were the victims of rapes ( possibly repeatedly ) and incest - I dread to think.
So some of those girls and women were doubly / triply traumatised by rape or incest, giving birth frightened, without pain relief and then their baby or babies forcibly being taken from them or dying from neglect and / or malnutrition 🥲

My Mum grew up during her teens in a catholic convent/laundry (in England). She wasn’t an unmarried mother (she was taken into care due to child abuse) but plenty in there were. Her stories are harrowing. This was 1960s/70s. To think that the state would remove children from harm and then place them in these horrific institutions is unfathomable.