Philomena

As soon as I started watching Philomena and the journalist was introduced as Martin Sixsmith I thought "I remember him from BBC News".

I had no idea that he'd gone off to work for the Labour government in 1997 or that he'd been forced out. But that recognition immediately made me think of the film as depicting a real story. More so that others which start with "Based on real events".

Truth is stranger than fiction (as they say) so I think you need to know in advance that this is something that actually happened. Some of the facts do seem unbelievable when you watch it. I think if it had been a fictional film I might well be writing "Nice film, but a bit far-fetched."

Of course, the film does take some liberties. Checking up on Sixsmith you can see that he wrote several other books and did some radio series after leaving the government; whereas the film suggests that he went straight into working with Philomena Lee. There are also bound to be plenty of people who have a vested interest in debunking the core criticisms of representatives the Catholic Church. You have to decide for yourself which evidence stands up to scrutiny.

Aside from the reason for their collaboration, there is a great deal of interesting interplay between Sixsmith and Lee. They are such different characters that the scope for humour and sometimes profound insight is huge. Whilst you almost expect Judi Dench to simply be brilliant because she is an actor of such stature, I think Steve Coogan's performance here is great too. He's often typecast as a comedy actor, but even his comedy characters have tragic elements that give them more depth than those of actors who are simply clowns.

Overall I really enjoyed this. It is a story that needed to be told.