The virtues of the British (movies, that is): Philomena

12 Years a Slave definitely deserved the best picture Oscar nod, but that's not to diminish from some other fine movie from 2013, and in particular Philomena - a really simple, straightforward narrative, with an excellent screenplay, fine pacing (by director Stephen Frears), and two totally solid if mature and unglam stars Steve Coogan and Judie Dench, in other words, an exemplar of the virtues we have come to take for granted among so many fine British movies and TV dramas, with their solid grounding in live theater (and serious literature, too, I guess) and that we rarely see in American films, with their devotion to action, effects, and star power. The movie is about very serious matters - the role of the Catholic church in Ireland in exploiting and abusing pregnant teens, the shameful sale of Irish babies to wealthy adoptive parents (a modest proposal that even Swift never thought of), and the disgraceful cover-up in later years that caused heartbreak and needless pain for so many - all told through the story of the title character who is in quest of the son taken from her by adoptive parents when he was about 3. With aid of an out-of-favor journalist, she pursues many trails, and I won't spoil the ending for anyone here - although it's obvious that the journalist, Michael Sexsmith?, got a great story, and then a book (and then this movie) out of what seemed at first like a light human-interest story. It's not a totally earnest, dreadful, polemical movie like so many movies on a "theme," but has a lot of drama and even humor. I think I've seen some online comments criticizing the movie for veering from the facts, but, come on, it's not a documentary - it's a drama with a point of view, a movie believe it or not for adults.