Braving fire and brimstone
An unwed mother moves mountains to unite with her lost son, writes GEOFFREY EU
Add BT as a preferred sourceIT may be mere coincidence, of course, but the Catholic faith seems to be fertile ground to some people for human-interest stories that have little to do with religion and everything to do with retribution in the form of mental cruelty and physical abuse.
Philomena, a touching, tragic and troubling tale of a woman's quest to find her son 50 years after she was forced to give him away leaves no doubt as to who the villains are - showing, in more ways than one, that old habits die hard.
A group of heartless nuns in a remote Irish convent holds the key to a mystery wrapped in grim circumstance but the film, directed by Stephen Frears and based on the book The Lost Child of Philomena Lee by Martin Sixsmith, also has a lightness of touch that can be attributed to Frears's dexterity in dealing with a controversial topic.
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