Dame Judith Dench delivers a performance that amazed me at her ability to show how deep shame can run and how strong a grasp it keeps on a soul. Her quiet looks, her grimaced face, her bright glimpses of getting past, only to see her shrink back beneath the suffocating covers of inflicted and ingrained shame—–all of these things overlap and build and shine to share a beautifully but painfully created character in this story.
Philomena’s story broke my heart; to learn it was based on true events brought tears streaming down my cheeks. The movie adaptation of her story is quiet at times and funny when needed, but more than anything, it was utterly endearing.
People often carry their secrets heavily, for the dark ones are usually carried deeply. And usually, when so deep, they weigh us down like a soaked blanket. When we let them out, they dry, and they are lighter. Philomena shows all of this, and Dench absolutely nails it.
The true shame in this story should belong to the church that drenched her secrets with words of hate and spite to bury them so deeply in her soul as to hide and fester. The true shame should be in any group that works to push people down rather than help lift them up. The ideal, though, would be for that group to genuinely convey embarrassment at its past and to move forward. Of course, given the state of current legal arguments being made, this is not the case.
And thus what I see as the true shame (contrasted to what she carried for so long) in Philomena lives on.