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| It's simple and well-told, although nothing about it is breathtakingly original. |
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| (James Berardinelli, Reelviews) |
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| Philomena is a wiser movie than it seems, with much to say about justice and forgiveness and the healing of wounds over time. Actually, it says next to nothing about any of those things, just implies its messages with a light hand. |
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| (Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle) |
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| At times the filmmakers seem to be taking potshots at Philomena for her placidity; other times Martin is made to seem crass and unfeeling– insufficiently spiritual. Life lessons are imparted, although the players never budge very much from their initial attitudes. |
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| (Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor) |
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| The movie wouldn’t stand for much of anything without such an effective team to represent the equivocating. |
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| (Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News) |
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| Mr Coogan, lavishly talented as a comic, and a comic actor, is fairly monotonous in the mostly serious role he wrote for himself. That leaves Ms. Dench to carry the picture, which she does, up to a point, with her usual delicacy and grace. |
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| (Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal) |
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| A howl of anti-clerical outrage wrapped in a tea cozy, Philomena applies amusing banter and a sheen of good taste to the real-life quest of Philomena Lee. |
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| (Justin Chang, Variety) |
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| Frears gives the story a slick makeover, blending melodrama and comedy with brisk professionalism and a hearty helping of schmaltz. But Dench and Coogan sell it well. |
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| (Jon Frosch, The Atlantic) |
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| We prepared ourselves for an emotional explosion-not for physical violence, but for that of a bursting heart - and yet, when the time came, that is not what happened. Frears put the pin back in the grenade, as it were. |
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| (Anthony Lane, New Yorker) |
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, Steve Coogan 
