Who Is Steve Coogan Yelling At?

In ‘Philomena’, Steve Coogan plays real-life journalist, Martin Sixsmith, who exposed an Irish convent’s practice of selling babies to rich American couples in the mid-twentieth century.

Philomena Lee had a baby out of wedlock in 1951. The convent took her in and delivered her baby. She then worked in indentured servitude for four years while her son was cared for in the nursery. She was allowed to see him for an hour a day. Philomena’s son, Anthony, was sold to an American couple for a thousand pounds.

Fifty years later, when Philomena tried to find him, the nuns at the convent were sympathetic, but uncooperative. A mysterious fire had consumed adoption records, though not the contract Philomena signed when she gave her son away. As an adult, Anthony returned to the convent to look for his mother. However, no one told Philomena. When Anthony died in 1995, he was buried at the convent.

At one point in the movie, Philomena and Martin pass a Catholic Church, and Philomena asks Martin to stop so she can go to confession. \

Martin is shocked and reacts strongly to her wanting to confess her sins. He says that the Catholic Church should go to confession:

Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. I incarcerated a load of young women against their will, used them as slave labor, then sold their babies to the highest bidder… I don’t believe in God, look, no thunderbolt! You don’t need religion to lead a happy and balanced life. I’m a journalist. We ask questions. We don’t believe something just because we’re told it’s the truth. What does the Bible say? Happy those who do not see yet believe. Hurray for blind faith and ignorance.

He then switches to a headline about an earthquake in Turkey, and says:

Why God suddenly feels the need to wipe out hundreds of thousands of innocent people escapes me. You should ask him about that while you’re in there. He’ll probably say he moves in mysterious ways.

Well, I resonate with many of the sentiments in Martin’s tirade, it’s frustrating because the conversation is messy with important ideas mixed randomly with emotions. Just who is Martin yelling at? And is he a “fecking idiot” as Philomena lambasts him with as she gets out of the car?

Martin is angry and rightfully so. It’s the appropriate response to huge injustice. Martin is not a fecking idiot for expressing his anger. But his wide spread of targets polarizes Philomena, when really they’re on the same side.

Martin is angry at the nuns who engaged in such a cruel, coercive and deceptive practice. He is angry at the church which has used fairy tales and threats as its marketing strategy and caused unimaginable suffering. But he also seems angry at God.

While it is easy to equate God and spirituality with religion, it is illogical to do so. Religion is a human construct to help humans explain and understand the incomprehensible. Rather criticize the human institution that constructed a system based on such a faulty premise. Hurray for blind faith and ignorance.

Philomena’s relationship with her God may be flawed if founded on erroneous and damaging beliefs, such as that she sinned by having sex and making a baby, even though she had no idea how babies were made. However, belief in her God has probably given her some succor throughout her years of suffering. The source of this comfort is entirely separate from the nuns’ actions.

Martin also seems angry at Philomena because he wants her to reject the God who has supported the system of violence and oppression done to her. But Philomena’s inner system is complex. It developed through many experiences, and is based on many beliefs and assumptions. Furthermore, she has parts who are simultaneously protecting her God of refuge, and the church, which she was raised to believe incarnate.

Martin’s scattered anger polarizes those parts and perhaps diminishes her ability to even feel the righteous anger at what was done to her.

Beneath Martin’s anger is, of course, a deep sadness. A terrible and unfathomable injustice was done, and the pain of witnessing it alone must feel excruciating. Martin has intelligent protector parts who wish he could retroactively protect Philomena and her son by pointing out the flaws in church theology.

The scene would have been quite different had Martin been able to feel and express his sadness. Then his anger could have been more rightly focused on the real culprit. He could have been more present and in solidarity with Philomena and her grief.

Of course, there’s an even deeper culprit than the nuns or the church. It’s on the other side of that thin line within us all.