Movie Review: Philomena (2013)
Historical background
In 1950s Ireland, the Catholic Church wielded immense influence over nearly every aspect of life, including education, healthcare, and social services. This dominance extended into the moral and sexual lives of citizens, particularly women. The Church, in collaboration with the Irish state, operated a network of institutions designed to enforce strict moral codes. Among the most notorious were the Magdalene Laundries, also known as Magdalene asylums, run by Catholic religious orders. (Ostberg 2024)
These laundries were originally established in the 18th century to house so-called "fallen women," a term that came to include not only sex workers but also unwed mothers, rape victims, orphans, and girls who simply defied social norms (Ostberg 2024). By the 1950s, the laundries had become prisons for thousands of women and girls, many of whom were transferred directly from Church-run Mother and Baby Homes after giving birth (Ostberg 2024). In most cases, the contact between the mother and child was severed instantly, but in others, some contact was kept, or it was used to manipulate and bully the women even further.
Young women in the Magdalene laundry. Available at https://www.nwci.ie/learn/article/understanding_the_magdalene_laundries, accessed May 2025.
Inside the laundries, women were subjected to harsh conditions. They worked long hours, often over 60 hours a week without pay, performing physically demanding labor in commercial laundries to keep the institutions going (FG 2024). Education was denied, contact with the outside world was restricted, and physical and emotional abuse was common. Food deprivation and public shaming were routine, and many women spent years, even lifetimes, confined within these institutions. (Ostberg 2024, FG 2024) Their children of the young mothers were usually put up for adoption or died, though some also remained connected.
The Irish state quietly supported these institutions, providing funding and referring women into their care (McGourty 2023). The institutions didn’t have regular check-ups and were mostly self-regulated, meaning that no one outside of the institutions knew for sure what was going on inside. It wasn’t until the 1990s that public awareness and outrage began to grow, leading to investigations, a formal state apology in 2013, and a compensation scheme for survivors. However, the religious orders involved have largely refused to release records or contribute financially to reparations. (FG 2024)
Survivors of the Laundries and their supporters holding a vigil. Available at https://www.fmus.org/the-magdalene-laundries-punishing-the-poor-pregnant-and-unwed-in-ireland, accessed May 2025.
Sean Ross Abbey, the convent mentioned in Philomena, also operated a mother and baby home from the 1930s to the 1970s (O’Reilly 2019). Many of the children found their way back to their mothers and families, but there were also many children with missing records or names on a death certificate, but no grave or body to be found. Another interesting series that covers the impact of women surviving the mother and baby homes and working at a laundry is “The Woman in the Wall.” It also follows the story of a woman who had lost contact with their baby and, after years, had the chance to look for them but ended up at their graves. Heartbreakingly realistic, but at the same time so unfair and hard to watch.
The main character of “The Woman in the Wall” in the laundry. Available at https://screenrant.com/the-woman-in-wall-episode-1-recap-biggest-reveals/, accessed May 2025.
Plot summary
After Philomena reveals to her daughter Jane that she had had a son, Anthony, who was taken from her soon after giving birth to him in a convent, Jane seeks out a reporter, Martin Sixsmith, to pick up her mother's story and help her find her long-lost son.
Martin who happens to have recently been fired from his job and unsure of what to do with his life, against his initial judgement decides to investigate further, after initially dismissing human interest stories as being “about weak-minded, vulnerable, ignorant people, to fill in newspapers read by vulnerable, weak-minded, ignorant people.”
The story then delves into Philomena’s story and the world of catholic convent’s forcing women into labor at their convent’s mother and baby homes for unwed mothers, in exchange for providing them shelter after childbirth, with of course the “bonus evil” of then giving those children up for adoption and selling them to wealthy catholic couples from the USA.
After getting no help from the convent and the Irish adoption boards, Martin and Philomena set out to the USA to find Anthony (named Michael by his stepparents), who they soon find out was a prominent lawyer for the republican party, but died of AIDS a few years before.
Although both doubtful at times if they want to pursue the issue further, Philomena is fully convinced she’d want to meet Anthony’s partner, Phil, and learn more about her son’s life after Martin notices a Celtic harp pin on a picture of him. Indicating his interest and pride in his origins - a notion that is fully confirmed when they finally manage to talk to Phil, who tells them about Michael's trip to Ireland to the convent where he was adopted from, and his dying wish to be buried at the convent.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2431286/mediaviewer/rm2050873600/?ref_=ttmi_mi_36
Character overview
Philomena (portrayed by Dame Judi Dench)
Coming from a vehemently catholic background, with her mother dying young, her life was forever altered by a chance encounter at a fair with a boy, who got her pregnant, and after her father disowned her, she was forced into a convent. After giving birth, she was allowed to see her child for only an hour a day. To pay off her “debt” to the convent, she was forced to work at the convent 7 days a week, for four years, during which time she had to witness her son being given up for adoption, never to meet him again.
Despite the brutal upbringing and further blows from life, she always retained an overwhelmingly positive outlook on life and a certain naïveté. With a simple background, being foreign to the world of luxury, not seeing herself as all that important, nor powerful, she was, however, in no way a weakling. With a definite inner strength, coming through in her faith and undeniable kindness, she held to her beliefs and found power to reason and forgive at times and in places often unreachable to others.
Martin (portrayed by Steve Coogan)
With a posh background and a resounding success of a career working for the BBC, being a correspondent in Russia and the USA, ranking up connections and accolades up to the point of a political scandal, taking place just before meeting Philomena. At the time of being introduced to her story, Martin was a somewhat lost soul, with a disdain for the simpler pleasures in life, not to mention a distinct lack of connection to the “lower classes”. He was, however, connected with Philomena in the search and belief in righteousness, standing his ground when put face to face with injustice. Although at times inpatient and nonchalant with Philomena, clearly still struggling to find his way after losing his career, he generally maintained a clear head and gave her odyssey the extra push and forceful decisiveness when reaching lines she would have never crossed on her own.
Analysis
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| Book Cover https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors/martin-sixsmith/the-lost-child-of-philomena-lee, accessed May 2025 |
To begin with, the film as history, the movie is based on the real-life story of Philomena Lee. Her story was written down in the novel The Lost Child of Philomena Lee by the journalist Martin Sixsmith in 2010 and tells how the young irish Philomena, born 1933 in Limerick and being raised after the death of the mother in a convent, became pregnant out of wedlock in the 1950s and was sent to the convent Roscrea in Tipperary, one of the Magdalene Laundries (The Standard 2014). Based on the book by Martin Sixsmith, the movie adaptation has „nearly none of the scenes […] duplicated from the original book version“ (Hollet 2024) as it narrates from the points of view of both Philomena and Martin and not as in the book, mostly from Philomena’s son Anthony/Michael. Reasons could be based on dramatic purposes, as in the movie Philomena’s struggles with the past are intertwined with Martin’s and create even more tension. Both Philomena Lee and Martin Sixsmith were part of the making of the film, providing invaluable insights and ensuring the story remained mostly rooted in their real-life experiences, though the presence of Martin was highly increased, since, e.g., in real life Philomena did the travel to America alone (The Standard 2014).
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| Philomena Lee and Judi Dench in 2014 https://people.com/celebrity/the-real-philomena-is-at-peace-as-oscar-night-approaches/ |
The story focuses historically on the practice of forced adoptions in these convents, as Philomena's son, Anthony, was given up for adoption as a three-year-old without her consent. Even though Philomena signed a contract in 1955 stating that she wouldn’t make any claim for her child in the future, it is doubtful that she signed it with free will, since in many sources it is stated that the women had no other choice (RTE Investigates). In 1952, Ireland was one of the last countries in Europe which legislate for adoption. The Adoption Act 1952 introduced legal frameworks, e.g. that adoptions were limited to illegitimate or orphaned children, the adoption may not be made without the consent of the mother and the adopters must belong to the same religion (Adoption Bill 1952), in order „to prevent these children being ‚lost‘ to Catholicism through adoption into Protestant families“(Gallagher 2021). It shows how the girls and women had minimal rights over what would happen to themselves and their children. As the movie focuses on the Church’s role, the state’s responsibility in these issues was not deeply explored. But it is clear that through the Adoption Act, the Magdalene Laundries and Mother and Baby Homes acted within the legal framework if they forcefully obtained the consent of the mothers. As these adoptions were usually untraceable, the mothers were often kept in the dark about the whereabouts of their children, highlighting the long-lasting trauma surrounding these adoptions.
To conclude this section, Philomena is not only a personal story but also a historical exposé that comments on systematic injustices in Ireland’s recent past of the Catholic Church. As many of these personal traumas are documented by women and historians, the movie brings renewed attention to these issues in nowadays society. Philomena’s story also contributed eventually to public and governmental inquiries into the Magdalene Laundries and their adoption practices.
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| Young Anthony, Source Philomena Movie |
Finally, let’s discuss the movie in context. Obviously, the movie criticises the institutional abuses in Ireland, but it also reflects how to deal with historical injustices. Philomena and Martin, the more different as characters they couldn’t be, personify two extreme different behaviours in that matter and emphasize clashing worldviews, e.g. regarding religion. Philomena, as the one who faced and lived through the trauma but also internalizes the societal, gendered shame of stigmatization of unmarried mothers (why was it always the women who got „punished“ by having an illegitimate child, and not the fathers?) chooses the side of forgiveness. That it took her 50 years of finally managing to tell her own daughter that she had had another child before, probably also reflects how stigmatized unwed mothers were also in the broader Irish society. Only in 1973, as a response to the growing recognition of the challenges faced by women raising children alone, the introduction of Unmarried Mother’s Allowance was issued but „it attracted no attention in local or national newspapers“(Gallagher 2021). Not only the Church drummed it into those „fallen“ girls and women that it was their mistake of getting pregnant and afterwards ending in this ‚desperate‘ situation but also the society confirmed steadily this worldview by falling quiet. On the contrary to Philomena, Martin who was in the beginning more interested in russian history than in realizing what happened just a few decades ago in his neighbouring country, seeks retribution. Being a man, coming from a country which was mostly spared from the moral authority and control of the Catholic Church and having internalized the secular, justice-driven behaviour from working as a journalist, he takes in the more bold place. The question is: how can you forgive someone who took away your child, abused you for several years and lied to you over years and years and consequently destroyed the chance to meet your already grown-up child before it dies of an already known disease? This contrary dynamic mirrors ongoing debates in Ireland about how to appropriately deal with those injustices: e.g. truth commissions, state apologies or judicial actions. Well, probably Philomena’s way of forgiveness is hard to comprehend but it maybe opens a door to a more pleasing life. Because living with anger and the seek for retribution also doesn’t change what has happened. For Philomena, it was maybe the biggest gift in getting finally to know that her son had a good life over there in America, maybe a better one she could have given him in Ireland, as she often stated. And that he has never forgotten about his Irish origin.
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| Philomena at Anthony’s grave at Roscrea |
Furthermore, as Philomena’s fate was unfortunately not the only one (The Irish Times 2015), the movie also depicts how legal barriers prevented adopted individuals from accessing information about their origins and searching mothers from getting to know the whereabouts of their children (Fischer 2021). After years of activism, the Irish government published the Birth Information and Tracing Bill in 2021 (it replaced the Adoption Act 1952), which proposed to give adopted individuals the right to access their birth information. While this bill represents a significant improval step, it has faced criticism for „perpetuating the culture of shame and secrecy“ because the bill does not provide unconditional access to birth certificates, especially when the parents have signed the „no contact“ preference (McCurry 2021). Movies such as Philomena are just a tiny amount of water which enables the watermill to spin, but are vital to intensify the work for justice. Right after the launch of the movie, Philomena Lee launched the Philomena Project in Dublin to campaign for the release of over 60.000 adoption files currently in the possession of the state, churches, and private agencies, as she received massive responses to her story. Though it took years until the Birth Information and Tracing Bill was published, it has “woken up many people to the crimes committed against thousands of unmarried mothers and their children under the guide of so-called legal adoption”(Guacci 2014) as co-founder of the Adoption Rights Alliance Susan Lohan stated. The exceptional movie cast with names like Judi Dench and the nominations for an Oscar brought this topic more into the broader world and society. And that is what activism needs: that people are aware and never stop talking about it because otherwise it takes even longer to make a change.
References
Adoption Bill. 1952. Committee on Finance. - Adoption Bill, 1952—Second Stage. Available at https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/debates/debate/dail/1952-06-11/6, accessed May 2025.
FG. 2024. The Magdalene Laundries: Punishing the poor, pregnant, and unwed in Ireland. Available at https://www.fmus.org/the-magdalene-laundries-punishing-the-poor-pregnant-and-unwed-in-ireland, accessed May 2025.
Fischer, Clara. 2021. Ireland’s shame: reforming an adoption system marked by secrecy and trauma. The Conversation, May 14. Available at https://theconversation.com/irelands-shame-reforming-an-adoption-system-marked-by-secrecy-and-trauma, accessed May 2025.
Gallagher, Emma. 2021. Shamed, shunned by Church, families and the State. Irish Independent, January 23. Available at https://www.independent.ie/regionals/sligo/news/shamed-shunned-by-church-families-and-the-state, accessed May 2025.
Guacci, Julie. 2014. The Launch of the Philomena Project. Available at https://borgenproject.org/the-launch-of-the-philomena-project/, accessed May 2025.
Hollett, Gillian Cartier. 2014. Philomena: The film and the book. Available at https://bookmusings.com/2014/04/21/philomenafilmversus/, accessed May 2025.
McCurry, Cate. 2021. Bill on adoptee rights criticised as ‘perpetuating culture of shame and secrecy’. Breaking News, June 29. Available at https://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/bill-on-adoptee-rights-criticised-as-perpetuating-culture-of-shame-and-secrecy-1149366.html, accessed May 2025.
McGourty, Courtney. 2023. Available at https://opiniojuris.org/2023/11/08/not-merely-a-shameful-past-the-case-for-state-responsibility-in-the-magdalene-laundries/, accessed May 2025.
O’Reilly, Rita. 2019. Sean Ross Abbey -1,000 Dead. RTE, December 17 Available at https://www.rte.ie/news/investigations-unit/2019/0418/1045347-rte-investigates-sean-ross-1000-dead/, accessed May 2025.
Ostberg, Rene. 2024. Magdalene Laundry. Britannica. Available at https://www.britannica.com/topic/Magdalene-laundry, accessed May 2025.
RTE Investigates. 2021 March 5. RTE Investigates: Ireland’s Illegal Adoptions [Video]. RTE Player. https://www.rte.ie/player/movie/rt%C3%A9-investigates-ireland-s-illegal-adoptions/186751528264.
The Irish Times. 2021. Woman sues over alleged forced adoption of her child at mother and baby home in 1980. The Irish Times, April 3. Available at https://www.irishtimes.com/crime-law/courts/2025/04/03/woman-sues-over-alleged-forced-adoption-of-her-child-at-a-mother-and-baby-home-in-1980/, accessed May 2025.
The Standard. 2014. Philomena - film review. The Standard, January 21. Available at https://www.standard.co.uk/culture/film/philomena-film-review-8916915.html, accessed May 2025.
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