Saroo Brierley’s story is one of those that would be too astonishing to make up. As a child in India in the 1980s, he was out with his brother at night scavenging for money in railcars when he fell asleep at a train station a couple hours from home. When he woke up, he was …
Judi Dench, consummate pro of an actress that she is, made me cry 8 minutes into Philomena. Her adult daughter (Anna Maxwell Martin) is rushing off to a late shift at work, but sees her mother Philomena staring at an old photograph, clutched in her hand. “Who is it?” her daughter asks gently, of the …
This is one of those stories that would be cloying and eyeball-rolling if it were not true (or at least we’re told it is true). A hulking practically mute teenage African-American kid who is poor and homeless is adopted into the folk of a wealthy white family. The kid is pulled up by his academic …