The trailer for Philomena
is selling a very different movie than what Stephen Frears made. I admit to
wanting to avoid this movie at all costs, but for my yearly goal of watching
everything that gets an Oscar nomination (and it’s looking ever more likely now
that I’ve seen it that Judi Dench will be nominated). But I should have given
Frears more credit as a director. After all, he’s made some movies I really admire and one I love (as well as a couple of stinkers). The publicity campaign
makes Philomena out to be a maudlin
story about a woman trying to find her long lost son, who was taken from her
and adopted fifty years earlier. It looks like the focus is on a daft old lady
who says silly little things, the kind of simplistic humor that appeals to the
lowest common denominator.
