Felicia's Journey

Felicia's Journey

Bob Hoskins was ok, but other than that - this was the most boring and annoying piece of crap that I've seen in a while. Be prepared to sit through 2 hours of "what is going on" and "when's something going to happen?" Could care less what happened to to the annoying lead Felicia... she was incredibly dumb and very two-dimensional. Also notice how the videotaped girls all say almost exactly the same things - where was that hidden camera in the car? And will someone shut that damn religious woman up? The icing on the cake was the end,; just when you think it's over it drones on for another 5 minutes and ends with this pathetic slow long shot of some trees and a building. Marketing did their job though - my friend, normally a person with excellent taste, scooped this piece of garbage up at the local Blockbuster - the dvd had tons of extras on it - the only redeeming part of an otherwise terrible film. Go rent "Silence of the Lambs" or "Seven" or a great surprise that I saw recently, "Eye of the Needle." All are far better thrillers. 3 out of 10 - an F.

Joe Hilditch, the head chef for an industrial complex, is a remarkable cook. He runs the kitchen with a sense of propriety, striving to do the best job he can do. At his home, we watch him tuned to a television running black and white tapes following the intricate recipes showcasing Gala, a French cook. The tapes, evidently, are from a somewhat distant past. Joe follows the recipes exactly; he loves eating the creations inspired by Gala. Felicia, a young Irish girl, is seen arriving in England. She is looking for Johnny Lysaght, her boyfriend, that according to her father, has decided to go to England to join the British army, something her old man holds against him because of a natural dislike for anything from the neighbor country. Felicity defies her father to go looking for Johnny. Fate brings Joe and Felicia together in such a strange way, she will be changed forever. In flashbacks from the tapes Joe watches, we realize his relation to the television gourmet cooking lady. Not only that, but Joe is also fond of videotaping young women he becomes in contact with. Felicia, who has no clue as to what is going around her, is oblivious to Joe's real intentions. Sadly, the story turns into something one sees coming, hoping Felicia is spared a terrible end. Atom Egoyan, who adapted the original material, made a wonderful transfer of the novel to the screen. As he accomplished with "The Sweet Hereafter", Mr. Egoyan, shows an affinity to the William Trevor's text in a film that stays in one's memory because of his marvelous take on the characters of the book. He remains true to the original work, expanding it for the big screen in a satisfying film. Bo Hoskins has one of the opportunities of his career impersonating Joe Hilditch. As a matter of fact, the young actor chosen to impersonate the young Joe, bears an uncanny resemblance with the actor. Elaine Cassidy makes a wonderful Felicia, the young woman that does not have any idea of what she is getting into. Arsenee Khanjian, does a tremendous contribution as Gala, the television master cook whose program has been kept for posterity. Atom Egoyan, one of the best Canadian filmmakers gets better with every new project he becomes involved in.

First, the good things about the movie: - good locations - excellent music - nice cinematography - good actors (specially Bob Hoskins) You'd think i liked it, right? Wrong. Simply put, this was the most sadistic movie i have ever had the displeasure to see. And i'm writing this just because i read all the other user comments and didn't saw this being mentioned. When the movie starts it looks good, but since we start understanding what he is doing to the girl... My problem with the movie, i guess, is not that it is slow (i don't mind that), is that it's all about the suffering of this innocent girl, who doesn't seem to be able to meet anyone nice or decent. Bad things is all that happens to her, while we are given no hint that it's gonna get better. I guess i cared to much about the character. And, by the way, the movie should really be titled Hilditch's Journey, since it ends up being much more about him then Felicia's. It almost feels like some of the things that happen to her are just a way to try and make it more thrilling and to just get the plot to move forward. I mean: it's almost unbelievable the sucession of bad stuff that happens to her. It looked to me almost as exploitation. I was so mad at what the director and screenwriter made that girl go thru, that when Hoskins's character almost chockes to death i hoped he would die. And the end, well, it came too late. So, if you're into sadism this movie is for you. If you're not, stay away from it. I never gave such a review to a movie, but this movie, really really irritated me. For those who liked it, i'm sorry , but this is how i feel. 3/10

This movie was dull. I only watched it for an hour before I turned it off. Hoskins character was dull. I couldn't get interested in this person one bit. The girls character (who's name I've forgot) is looking for the lover who has abandoned her. I did feel for her because she has been taken advantage of and she just can't accept it. Still the movie was way to slow for my tastes. After watching for an hour I lost interest in seeing the resolution between Hoskins, the girl, and her lost lover. I will rate it a 3 out of 10. Definitly not worth my time to watch.

I found this an awfully disappointing experience! But I have appended a better option of similar style at the foot of this entry. This "Felicia's Journey" is intriguing. It has drama. But it is full of stereo-types! So it ONLY serves judgemental temperaments without concern for truer justice & fairness & truth, beyond black 'n' white judgements that fit 30-second ads of "NEWS" that dot our multimedia experiences everyday, especially news bulletins, true or misleading in such depictions! It is SO EXAGGERATED, it reminds me of the fairytale of "Little Red Ridinghood"! Consider the innocent young girl with no identification crossing borders questioned by a guard but freed without any evidence to venture on in search of her 'Romeo' who didn't give her an address VERSUS the pathetically inept lack of substance in the raspy voice of the 'helping hand' befriending her with his unlikely story fabricated by the layer! It seems to suit the directors & management team that no-one has faith or prays to God, even in their times of desperation! So in these early settings, it orchestrates & tells much of what is to come! A nightmare journey that betrays the essence of substance without fairytale resolution, without truth or integrity or credibility! ...Then one twist & it's all over. What a disappointment! If you want to see a MUCH superior movie that investigates similar themes with MUCH more credibility, with much more powerful insight, watch the 1983 Paul Cox/Norman Kaye "Man of Flowers" movie!!! Unlike here, you will NOT be disappointed!

A chilling portrait of a serial killer whose killings may all be in his imagination. Egoyan uses the unfashionable industrial Birmingham landscape to powerful effect, and Bob Hoskins gives one of the best performances of his career. The use of the car video is extraordinary and the spoof on Hitchcock (Hilditch=Hitch?) with the timeless, culinary kitchen and mum spouting recipes on the box is deeply and darkly funny. The best British movie to be ignored in 1999 and as a Canadian director, Egoyan has a great eye and ear for the sights and sounds of the English city. Great stuff.

Spoilers herein. This is only my second voyage with Egoyan and already the man frustrates the hell out of me. He has a sublime intuition. The soul of this film is about humans as memory and film as memory. He folds memory and enfolds us in the process. Remembrances as TeeVee shows and illicit videos. Lost memories as murder. Pregnancy and food preparation conflated, and then related to headless sight. Sight as culture; `fabrication' as stolen religion. All this built with such fine multisymmetry that I feel blessed being exposed to this manner of visual breathing. The very recall just makes me glad to be alive. But then the man thinks and everything turns to raw liver. He's just not that bright and gets easily impressed with `investigating what it means to be human.' Gosh. So he takes oily sophomoric banalities and ladles them all over his beautiful crystals: simple visual symbolism; vapid truths; synthetic paradoxes; staged ironies. What really ruined this film for me was watching it a second time with Egoyan's commentary. In it (dropped in among six thousand `you know's) is an articulation of life worthy of a high schooler infatuated with the wonders of acting. When I watched this without his `help,' I was able to ignore all the simple thematic mechanics and wonder at the subtlety of the eye and the remarkably sophisticated notion of memory and reference. The fluidity of stirred time. The consummate understanding of how to place a reference of one scene in the imagination of another in a different time and place. And that is the experience I wish on you dear reader -- so ignore the commentary. Someone needs to channel this man's intuitive eye away from his simple mind. We just don't have enough of these people to waste, people whose soul you can sometimes see reaching into their art while they aren't looking. He must be aware of this, as there is a strong self-referential tone. And much of the hammered mechanics that bothers me is about the contrast between hammered mechanics and natural grace (sense and sensibility).

You just need to see this as a poorly executed anti abortion propaganda and you will realize just how bad it really is. The main message of this movie is that even the sickest of persons can't commit an abortion. If you ask that's not a long way away from blowing up abortion clinics. So this guy wants to kill some poor girl but he has to convince her to do an abortion first. What a load of crap. And the worst part is that he has an convincing argument (bringing a child into a loveless environment), but that is supposed to be dismissed because he's a freak anyway. And the part with the bible pushers...first they throw this girl out just because she explains someone stole her money (that rule must be in the bible somewhere) and then on the end they are some sort of angel like deus ex machina delivering the killer from evil by harassing him on his front yard. Come on. Other downpoints include a very confusing scenario (and I don't mean in a good way)...so this guy is just some psycho why? Because his mother fed his some liver once? And I don't know about the rest of you but he seemed like the nicest person in the world throughout the whole move! even though he was a wearing girlie clothes, stealing money and taping girls in his car. If you forget the idiot story, this movie has a really great cinematography and Bob Hoskins was really great, and it has one of those funny little English cars in it. If it was actually about some psycho killer I'd give it a 7 at least.

For as far as I know this was the very first movie that I've seen from Atom Egoyan. I had heard his name before and I knew that the movies he makes are often very good, but you just can't see them all, can you? Still, I'm glad that I finally got to see one and I must say that I'm already a fan of his work. If his other movies are as good as this one, than I almost can't wait to see those too. The title "Felicia's Journey" already tells something about what to expect from this movie. It tells the story of an Irish girl that is making her way from Ireland to England, to find her boyfriend who moved there to get a job in a lawn-mower factory. On arrival she meets a lonely middle-aged catering manager, called Hilditch, who recommends a boarding room to her. But Hilditch is a bit of a strange man. Even though he seems very nice and polite, he's always alone and seems to spend hours on studying tapes of an eccentric TV chef called Gala. Gradually we learn that the man has a much darker side than what we and Felicia at first assume... Even though he could easily have made a horror movie out of this subject or perhaps even worse, a TV-movie (it has something to do with having a bad youth, murder,...), Atom Egoyan has made the excellent choice of focusing on the drama and studying the characters with flashbacks. And by only slowly allowing the viewer to get some new information, rather than to give away everything at once, he builds up tension very well. But a good story isn't enough to make a good movie of course, some fine performances by all the actors are needed as well. Despite the fact that I didn't really know Elaine Cassidy (I only saw her play in "The Others" before), I must say that she is a pleasant surprise. She really did a very nice and convincing job with this role. The same can be said about Bob Hoskins. Him I know a lot better, but he too surprised me. He was so good in his role as Hilditch, that it took me quite some time to believe that it was really this man who did those horrible things. Overall this is a very fine movie with some excellent performances and a very interesting story. I'm convinced that there will be several people who will not like it for several reasons, but personally I liked it a lot. For me it wasn't too slow and I stayed focused from beginning until the end. And as this movie shows, you always have to be patient. Its power doesn't lie in the beginning or in the middle. Only when it is finished, you'll fully understand what has happened. That's why I give this movie a rating in between 7.5/10 and 8/10.