Philomena - 2013 ***

I can't say I was particularly excited by this, despite having Steve Coogan and Judi Dench topping the bill. Dench befriends Coogan, a weary reporter who believes he can find her missing son who was taken from her when she was a young girl living in a convent in the 1950s. 

The trip brings trials and tribulations, but most importantly it brings friendship between the two. It's not funny in the slightest in my opinion, and doesn't give either of the players the correct platform on which to perform. 

The Other Woman aka Love and Other Impossible Pursuits - 2009 **

Bleak and hard going. Natalie Portman plays a woman trying to get over the death of her baby as well as juggling her marriage with her husband who left his last wife for her. Portman tries unsuccessfully to get on with her husband's son from his first marriage, all the time feeling inadequate for not having the child she so desperately wants.
Nothing happy or positive here so don't watch unless you have some sort of sedation for afterwards.