Recovered Classic: Felicia's Journey


Rippling with a sinister undercurrent which stops just shy of truly disturbing, Felicia’s Journey is an unsettling psycho-drama with Hitchcockian overtones, an almost surreal tale of two troubled personal worlds colliding. Written and directed by Atom Egoyan (who adapted William Trevor’s novel) this was the follow-up to the Canadian helmer’s lyrically affecting The Sweet Hereafter (a previous Recovered Classic) and it shares many of the themes of the earlier movie, such as chance, coincidence, damaged girls and predatory men.

Set in England’s murky, industrialized Black Country, it’s the story of young Irish girl Felicia (Elaine Cassidy) who leaves her small home town to travel to England in search of the father of her unborn child, who has apparently found work in a lawnmower factory near Birmingham. Vulnerable and alone, she is soon helped in her quest by catering manager Joseph Hilditch (a creepy Bob Hoskins), who warms to the young girl when he finds her looking lost outside his place of work.
Quickly striking up a friendship with the teenager, it soon becomes obvious that Hilditch, a man obsessed with watching the cooking videos his French mother made when he was a child, is not all he seems, his large, cluttered house (where nothing seems to have changed since the 1950s) hiding a dark secret which Felicia will become all too familiar with. Taken in by Hilditch’s apparent generosity, her judgment is easily clouded, unable to see that all attempts to locate her boyfriend are being thwarted by the scheming bachelor, who makes every effort to appear helpful while all the time cooking up a dastardly plan of his own.

The movie which closed the 1999 New York Film Festival, Felicia’s Journey sees Egoyan skillfully mould Trevor’s novel to express his own cinematic vision, not only in the literal sense, but also in terms of the characterizations. In Hilditch, he presents us with a repressed middle-aged man who we suspect may be up to no good, but whose violent past is only gradually revealed. Indeed, the crimes we are led to believe he has committed (murdering a succession of young girls) are never actually seen on screen. The complexity of his character is also deepened by the videos he watches every night, which feature a fat, sad young boy who we eventually learn is Hoskins himself.

His background and unhealthy obsession with his mother is contrasted with that of Felicia, who fled Ireland after her rabid Irish nationalist father accused her of sleeping with the enemy, believing her boyfriend to have joined the British army. But while her intentions are just, she is either too naïve, too blind or just too plain stupid to realize what’s going on.

Under Egoyan’s careful direction, these two central performances are exceptional, Hoskins the best he’s been in years, oozing an understated menace, while Cassidy perfectly captures the essence of the innocent abroad who mistakenly puts her trust in a total stranger. The director also adds a striking visual punch to the movie which makes Birmingham look unexpectedly impressive, the wide vistas of imposing cooling towers and heavy industry providing a marvellous contrast to the old-fashioned, prison-like confines of Hoskins’ home.

Simmering with haunting subtlety, it’s a disquieting tale told with considerable finesse by all concerned. A dark and intriguing glimpse at life’s seedy underbelly which is as disconcerting as it is captivating.

David Lichtneker

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