Philomena is a nice little movie, there’s no other way to put it. It has the light feeling of a B-film, but a good B-film, an enjoyable one. It’s based on a true story that is both interesting and surprising, and although the narrative structure is not super-sophisticated and the dialog is a bit generic, the film is decently-paced, thoughtful and dignified, smartly resisting any temptation to take a maudlin approach to its angsty subject matter. Unfortunately most of the film’s humor is featured in the preview, a recent sales innovation that I am finding more and more distracting when watching movies – I definitely had a feeling of having seen the funny lines a million times before, and the way the film was advertised in New York theaters it was probably close to that. It’s hard to say how the film would have struck me if all the comic lines had not been leaked to me beforehand, completely out of context, but it’s certainly unfair to attribute any resulting staleness to the movie itself – there were a lot of cute and funny lines (and they made for a very effective preview.)

Judi Dench is adorable, there’s no denying this. She’s one of those rare actresses who is fabulous to watch no matter what they are doing, and Philomena is no exception. Steve Coogan is kind of a “house favorite” of my wife and I, for reasons I will elaborate on in my upcoming appreciation piece for The Trip. The supporting and incidental casting is solid; I thought Mare Winningham was quite good, and it is always nice to see and hear Anna Maxwell Martin in anything.

I’m not sure I would ever feel the need to see Philomena again, but it goes down well on the first pass, and is well worth checking out!