Philomena (Judi Dench) was a young girl in Ireland in 1952. She went to the fair, met a boy, quickly found out what makes blood boil and got pregnant. In Ireland, in the fifties, young pregnant girls were sent to a nunnery. There they delivered their babies and there they stayed as boarders. They worked off their keep in heavy labor all day doing laundry or other tasks. The girls got to see their babies grow up into toddlers, usually in visits of one hour a day over lunch break. When the children were two or three years old, the young mothers had grown attached to the kids. But there was a sinister part to this: The nuns gave away the babies for adoption and the girls had no say in it.

This is how it came about that Philomena’s son was taken away from her and her world collapsed.

Now she is 70 years old and has raised a daughter of her own. Yet every day of her life she misses her little boy, and wonders what has become of him. She decides to try and find him.

Martin (Steve Coogan) is a journalist who recently lost his job. He meets Philomena and he agrees to help her find her son, if he gets to write the “human interest story” that may come out of it.

This movie tells the story of their journey to finding her son. It is simply told, full of suspense and emotional drama. There are no car chases, no slapstick humor episodes, no killings or any threat of violence – well, almost.

Rating: ** 1/2