Decades after World War II, in rural France, a family matriarch unravels the web of lies that stands in for her actual past...

At ninety-five years old, Philomène still feels ashamed. A summer surrounded by three generations of her beloved progeny would be perfect bliss, if she wasn’t worried that at any moment she might expose the truth—that the woman her daughters have spent their entire lives looking up to is a liar. 

Philomène was not the brave war widow of a communist in her youth, nor a member of the resistance in World War II-era France, but a distressed teenage prostitute, willing to do anything to survive the Nazi occupation. As death lurks on the horizon, Philomène dives back into her memories, from her birth in Nantes to giving birth in Paris, and questions whether she can ever truly be forgiven. 

Poignant, wistful, and quietly defiant, Philomène examines the unreliability of memory, the dubious proposition of measuring guilt, and the strength in finding happiness even after losing everything.