Felicia’s Journey ** (1999, Bob Hoskins) – Classic Movie Review 1317

Director Atom Egoyan’s 1999 psycho-thriller tells the rather depressing and sordid little tale of a lonely middle-aged catering manager named Joe Hilditch (Bob Hoskins), who picks up and befriends an Irish teenage girl called Felicia (Elaine Cassidy), with familiar tragic results.

Felicia travels to Birmingham hoping to find the boyfriend who made her pregnant, but left Ireland without leaving an address. She accepts the friendly-seeming Hilditch’s help, but his sinister story is gradually revealed in flashbacks. And Felicia’s relationships with her boyfriend Johnny, who joined the British Army, and her father, who disapproves of her friendship with a British soldier, are also revealed.

Based on a prize-winning 1994 novel by William Trevor, it’s the kind of story you want to turn away from, and has little to offer as entertainment or enlightenment.

But cult director Egoyan tries very hard to make the best of this story, bringing credibility and convincing everyday detail to his film, and profitably concentrating on exploring the characters and their relationships, while Hoskins brings a commendable tragic dimension to his role. It’s not at all explicit, with a 12 certificate for mature thematic elements and related disturbing images.

Birmingham landmarks are featured, including The Bartons Arms, a pub in the Newtown area of Aston. The Irish scenes were shot in Glanworth, County Cork.

Sadly British national treasure Hoskins died from pneumonia on April 29 2014, aged 71. On 8 August 2012, Hoskins announced his retirement from acting after being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2011. He appeared in films such as The Long Good Friday (1980), Mona Lisa (1986), Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), Mermaids (1990) and Hook (1991).

Egoyan is the director of The Sweet Hereafter and Devil’s Knot (21013).

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(C) Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Movie Review 1317

Link to Derek Winnert’s home page for more film reviews: http://derekwinnert.com/