Love Is a Roar

PHILOMENA (B+) - An undeniably engrossing story is well-told by Stephen Frears, with a slight but smart script co-written by Steve Coogan, who co-stars as Martin Sixsmith, a former journalist and disgraced political hack who stumbles on the story of Philomena (Judi Dench), a woman forced to give her son up for adoption nearly 50 years earlier by nuns at an Irish convent that was run like a slave-labor camp.

If you're a fan of Coogan's, you'll be pleasantly surprised at his mostly dramatic turn as a frustrated freelancer with many comic moments of exasperation in dealing with Dench's title character, a simple woman with a love of romance novels and a mix of old-lady directness and small-town naivete. Dench, with her elegant wrinkles and imploring eyes, carries this off effortlessly. Some may see this as Hollywood royalty slumming as a simpleton, but she brings extraordinary warmth and depth to a character whose interesting shading is revealed as the movie unfolds. (It's not unlike Alexander Payne's "Nebraska," where those rural Plains folk came off as surprisingly nuanced and familiar. For me, it didn't hurt that ol' Dame Dench resembles my paternal grandmother here in her face and actions.)

Frears deftly walks the line between Hallmark treacle and novelistic heart-tugging. Coogan and Dench have perfect chemistry, traveling the hotels of Washington, D.C., and beyond to track down the son she hasn't known since toddlerhood. Dench is a powerful dramatic performer, but she's quite funny here, too. Coogan, one of the funniest men in showbiz, is toned down here but still delivers a punchline like few can. A nice running gag is not only Philomena's romance-novel vice, but also her habit of running off at the mouth breathlessly recounting the ridiculously complicated plots, to the eye-rolling chagrin of Sixsmith. (The book titles are a fine touch, too; the story of the Lord of the Manor who scandalously falls for the Stable Girl is dubbed "The Slipper and the Horseshoe").

Frears is a little slow out of the gate with this one, and I wished he'd given a little more time to the family Philomena did have after fleeing the evil nuns. And while Coogan holds his own with a film giant of a co-star, a few times he's merely mugging in reaction shots as if he were in a sitcom. That said, once the pieces do fall into place, this is about as enjoyable a time you can have in a movie theater.

Despite the film's minor flaws, these characters truly come to life -- he is a bitter atheist who can't find room in his heart for the nuns and their pope, and she isn't the daft old bird we think she is -- and the unveiling of the fate of Philomena and her long-lost son is undeniably gut-wrenching. Any mother's grown son will be reduced to a puddle of tears.

CUTIE AND THE BOXER (B) -A quietly affecting love story of two artists -- he is older and domineering, she is submissive and her art takes a backseat to his -- living in New York, struggling to be relevant after making their big splash decades ago and struggling to pay the rent.

Ushio Shinohara is known for his sculptures of motorcycles and also the paintings in which he attaches a big sponge to the nose of a boxing glove and punches the paint onto the canvas. His wife, Noriko (22 years his junior), came from Japan and sought him out as a mentor. Eventually she created the character Cutie, who stars in a comic-strip-style series of works with her man Bullie.

The suggestions here are not so subtle. He's a boxer or a bully; she's an innocent cutie-pie in pigtails. Director Zachary Heinzerling takes his time warming up here, letting the couple's ordinary home life (she hates the way he slurps his food) establish the atmosphere for a good half hour. A bigger theme emerges in the second half hour, as Cutie chafes under Ushio's domineering ways and all but rejoices when he takes a trip to Japan (to hawk a sculpture) and gives her room to breathe and focus on her own art. (When he returns with precious rent money, they smell the hundreds and count them and store them in ceremonial fashion.) Turns out, Ushio was a raging alcoholic for decades before doctors ordered him to quit a couple of years ago; their lethargic Americanized son who visits has inherited the habit (he gulps his wine). 

It's in the final 20 minutes -- if you can make it that far -- where Heinzerling drives it all home, quite effectively. At an opening for Ushio -- who has struggled to create quality work in recent months -- Noriko is granted a side room for Cutie, and it's a chance for her to quietly assert herself. (He wants the show to be titled "Roar" -- she unilaterally amends it to "Love Is a Roar.") We finally get a full rendering of their relationship -- not loveless, exactly, but practical in an old-world way -- and an appreciation for the life of low-status artists eking out a living and learning to live and love together. We glimpse a devastating scene out of a home movie from decades ago of Ushio having a drunken breakdown, and Heinzerling ends things with shots of the couple going about their business, workmanlike and respectful. It's a touching scene.