In the superb upcoming drama Philomena, where an elderly woman embarks on a
trans-Atlantic search for a son who was adopted against her will fifty years previously, star Judi Dench doesn’t kill anyone. Nor does she throw a punch. She doesn’t
stab, strangle, or smother a single soul. She and her co-star Steve
Coogan, who plays a journalist writing a story about her, do say
“fuck” a couple of times, though not about fucking. Those two
utterances of a word most teenagers (and the rest of us) say every day were enough to garner a R
rating for Philomena stateside.

Dench is fighting back.

The Oscar-winning actress signaled her willingness to wage a public battle with the MPAA in a
23-second YouTube video, in which she channeled M, her tough-as-nails character
from the James Bond series. According to Variety, the video is a teaser
for a future Funny or Die sketch:

Philomena
is distributed by The Weinstein Company, no stranger to the pearl-clutchers
over at the MPAA. Back in 2010, Harvey Weinstein and Blue Valentine star
Ryan Gosling launched a media campaign to get the romantic drama’s rating downgraded from an illogical NC-17 seal of doom. After some adjustments, the MPAA eventually backed down in that case.

Our own
Melissa Silverstein addressed Dench and Weinstein’s rating battle for Forbes,
writing:

It’s
interesting to me that most of the fights that become public with the ratings
board are usually not about violence but about language and sexuality, which is
where the [MPAA] board maintains its rigidity. There was a fight recently over
the film Blue Valentine and the actor Ryan Gosling even got into the
conversation calling the board misogynistic for trying to “control a woman’s
sexual presentation of self.” He also said: “I consider this an issue that is
bigger than this film.” He’s got a point.

In her
native England, Dench’s film received the equivalent of a PG-13 rating. Philomena
will be released on November 22.

Watch the
trailer here: