The Descent Into Blindness

The lumbago is much improved this morning, so L can be as rough with me as she likes. The dogs are rougher though, and very energetic as we hit the park.

After an annual check up at the opticians to see how my descent into blindness is progressing, I manage to watch Derby defeat Sheffield Wednesday 3-0. Then I meet L in Derby where we head to Quad.

‘Philomena’ is adapted from Martin Sixsmith's book ‘The Lost Child of Philomena Lee’ and is directed by Stephen Frears.

Back in the day, when she just a mere girl, Philomena Lee (played as a youngster by Sophie Kennedy Clark) had sex with a boy at a fairground, before she even knew what sex was. She also didn't know what a pregnancy was but she soon found out. As this was Ireland in the 1950s for this unforgivable sin she was locked up in a convent where she gave birth to a son, whom she called Anthony.

Actually she wasn't such a mere girl really, she was 18, but as I've already said this was Ireland in the 1950s and "the thing is, I didn't even know I had a clitoris." Which is what the older Philomena (Judy Dench) tells former BBC journalist Sixsmith (Steve Coogan) fifty years on. This is how Sixsmith, unsure of what to do after being sacked as a government adviser, apart from writing a book on Russian history, ends up doing a human interest story, something he thought was beneath him as he assists Philomena in searching for her son.

The pair of them head back to the convent where they confront the nuns to find out what happened to Anthony after he was removed from the convent at the age of three. The nuns weave a shroud of deceit to cover their tracks including telling them that all the records of the adopted children were destroyed in an ‘accidental’ fire. That is apart from the form they asked her to sign which waived her parental rights which has been lovingly preserved.

Sixsmith finds that a convenient conversation in the local pub is more help than the nuns. The landlord pours scorn on the 'fire' theory and tells them that aside from subjecting the inmates to what amounted to slavery, the convent ran a nice sideline in selling the girls' children to rich Americans. Which is what happened to Anthony.

Sixsmith makes use of his contacts in the USA and they both head over there to find out more. What they find is that the adopted Anthony was renamed Michael Hess and on the internet Sixsmith finds out that Michael worked as a high-ranking official in the Reagan administration, all the time hiding the fact he was homosexual and sadly died of AIDS nine years ago. 

They track down and visit his adopted sister Mary, who was taken from the convent with him. Then they find Michael's partner who won’t at first talk to them but eventually Philomena convinces him to do so. He reveals that Michael did try to find his mother in Ireland and even went to the convent to speak to the nuns. None of which the nuns admitted to as they continued to blatantly lie even fifty years on. Also it was his final wish to be buried there.

So they head back to the convent again, see the grave, and confront the sister who was in charge back then, Sister Hildegarde (Barbara Jefford), who is still unrepentant. Philomena, incredibly, forgives her. FFS.

I’m impressed by the film. It's enthralling, not unduly sentimental and it doesn't have a happy ending, not really. Judi Dench is Judi Dench, of course, flawless. Steve Coogan, who is everywhere right now, is well... Steve Coogan. I’m still not convinced by his acting ability, he always seems very one dimensional and here he again appears to mainly play himself.

More to his style perhaps is the fact he co-produced as well as co-wrote the film but he does seem to have sneakily re-jigged Sixsmith’s book. The screenplay has turned the sequence of events on its head and in the process built a bigger part for Cougan. I don't think keeping to the original story would have made any difference to the impact of the film but it would have produced two leading actresses in Dench and Anna Maxwell Martin, who plays Philomena's daughter Jane and only a minor role for Cougan.

After the film we head to the restored Old Bell Hotel on Sadler Gate. Only the Tudor Bar is open at the moment but its mightily impressive and a far cry from the place that has been known as the local drugs den for all my drinking life.

We have a few drinks in there before moving on to the Flowerpot.

 
(Saturday 9^th November) 

Indoor Snowball Fight

Obviously a bit hacked off that yesterday’s snow caused only minimal disruption, the weather has another go overnight. We have an impressive few inches this morning. Unfortunately this puts paid to tomorrow’s Half Marathon. Damn.

It doesn’t keep the boys off the park, although kicking footballs is heavy going. It also doesn’t keep us from a hastily arranged lunch appointment to celebrate L’s mother’s 70th birthday. Her sister, who heads up from Hertfordshire, arranges it for 12.30. Which is more breakfast than lunch for us on a Saturday.

We meet at Cherry Tree Farm, which sounds like somewhere you take your kids to look at pet llamas and ride on the go-karts but we have actually been there before. L has on occasion ran with some of her friends from there and eaten there afterwards.

With the race off I don’t have to eat sensibly and can have a pint. Although if I’d known about the scale and size of their speciality, puddings, I may have skipped the main course.

Tonight we go to Broadway to see the film ‘The Sessions’ based on the real story of Marc O'Brien (John Hawkes). O'Brien was a childhood victim of polio and has spent his life since encased in an iron lung, save for a few hours each day. He is almost entirely paralyzed from the neck down but retains use of all his senses and has some feeling throughout his body.  

Despite this, O'Brien not only retains a sense of humour but has a positive outlook on life. He studies, passes exams and becomes a poet. Although he still remains heavily dependent on his personal carers. 

After firing a carer that he doesn’t like, he falls in love with her far more beautiful and sensitive replacement, Amanda (Annika Marks). 

One day he tells her that he loves her. Which shocks her and she disappears, perhaps realising that she has similar affection for him. Despite his predicament, he can still charm the women.

Frustrated that he will never experience love or sex, he decides at the age of 38 to lose his virginity. First, as he’s a catholic, complete with a picture of the Virgin Mary staring down at him from his wall, he has to clear this with his priest (William H. Macy). Who is a rather ‘right on’ cleric with a flowing mane of hair who believes, probably wrongly, that God may give him a free pass on this one. Perhaps our (supposedly) celibate priest also wondered if there were any 2-for-1 offers.

So enter Cheryl (Helen Hunt), a sexual surrogate. Which is a fascinating profession or maybe not, perhaps it’s just another job but not a prostitute as she makes pains to point out. . 

Her husband seems to know about her job but I find it hard to tell whether he’s bothered or not bothered about her job or simply not bothered about her.

The therapy is a success but in the process Cheryl has also discovered a place in her heart for Mark, so she also bails out before they both get too attached.

After a power cut almost kills him by deactivating his iron lung and Mark ends up in hospital, he gets chance to charm a third woman and he meets Susan (Robin Weigert) who remains his partner until the day he died. 

All his ‘women’ are present at his funeral. Along with Vera (Moon Bloodgood) who is Amanda’s replacement as one of his carers and takes him to all his therapy sessions.

It looks a bit low budget at times and doesn't zing along as it perhaps might, refusing to perhaps delve into any of the potential sub-plots it opens up. Preferring to remain focussed on its main character instead. It’s very good though with plenty of understated humour and never once does it sink into the usual Hollywood sentimentality.

Afterwards it some of the now allowed Old Peculiar in The Peacock where we inadvertently get caught in the crossfire of an indoor snowball ambush. Luckily the perpetrators are rotten shots.

(Saturday 23^rd March)