Late December is often a time for
family, but it's also a time for glutting on awards season movies,
with multiple high-profile titles being released weekly. Naturally,
families head out to the theatre on their precious days off in early
winter, but finding the right flick for everyone can be a challenge.
To help you narrow things down (ever so
slightly), here is a two-fisted review for a double feature I call the “Take-Your-Mom///DON'T-Take-Your-Mom Double Bill”. The
comprising films: Philomena and The Wolf of Wall Street.
Now far be it for me to presume your
mother's cinematic tastes, but if (like many people's moms) she's one
of those Downton Abbey devotees who prefers lite drama of the
genteel variety, or is simply convinced that British film and
television is 'just better' than everything else, then it's hard to
imagine her disliking Philomena.
Based on the 2009 non-fiction The
Lost Child of Philomena Lee by journalist Martin Sixsmith (played
in the film by Steve Coogan, who also co-produced and co-wrote the
screenplay), it follows the travails of a darling old Irish woman
(Judi Dench in the title role) as she and Sixsmith attempt to track
down the long lost son that was taken from her fifty years ago. The
jaded Sixsmith is only there to write a human interest story, a
project which the former political correspondent considers quite
beneath him. But as a surrogate mother-son relationship develops
between the two, it isn't so unpredictable to see that Philomena has
more to teach him than he realizes.
