‘Philomena’ mixes humor with outrage

Sometimes gentle humor is the best way to tell a horrific story.

And that’s what “Philomena” is, at least in part, the story of a woman cruelly mistreated by the Catholic Church. Yet it is also a story of redemption, forgiveness and faith, genuine on all fronts. And it features a terrific performance by Judi Dench, though the quality of her work is probably the leastsurprising, if most-welcome, aspect of the film.

Director Stephen Frears manages to successfully walk the tricky line between comedy and dark drama. It keeps the audience off-kilter a bit, but in a good way; we shouldn’t always need to know what’s coming next, in terms of tone or plot.

The script, co-written by co-star Steve Coogan and Jeff Pope, is based on a book called “The Lost Child of Philomena Lee,” by former BBC foreign correspondent Martin Sixsmith. That’s who Coogan plays, at a point in his career when he’s just been sacked as a spin doctor in Tony Blair’s administration. He’s casting about for something to do (and seriously considering writing a book about Russian history, a running joke with a good payoff) when a chance meeting at a party leads him to an idea for a lowly lifestyle story, or so he deems it.

A woman named Philomena (Dench) decides she wants to find out what happened to the son she gave birth to at Sean Ross Abbey in Ireland, a strict convent. Like other girls in her situation, pregnant and unmarried, she was put to brutal work in a laundry, working long hours every day, a virtual slave providing labor for (and receiving constant judgment from) the sisters, who are always ready to remind the girls of their “carnal incontinence.”

They are allowed to see their children one hour per day, until the children are sold to wealthy parents. Yes, sold. (Peter Mullan’s 2002 film “The Magdalene Sisters” is based on the girls who worked in the laundries.) Eventually, a family comes for Philomena’s son; she must watch through a window as the car pulls away with her boy inside.

Sixsmith finally decides there might

THE WEINSTEIN CO. Judi Dench portrays a woman who wants to find the son she gave up, with help from a correspondent played by Steve Coogan in “Philomena.”