Themes: Unlikely Criminals, Woman In Jeopardy, Haunted By the Past
Main Cast: Bob Hoskins, Elaine Cassidy, Arsinée Khanjian, Peter McDonald, Gerard McSorley
Release Year: 1999
Country: UK/CA
Run Time: 116 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG13
Plot
Directed by Atom Egoyan, Felicia's Journey is a low-key psychological thriller about the relationship between a lovesick young woman and an older man with an ugly secret. Felicia (Elaine Cassidy) has lived all of her life in a small village in rural Ireland. She has fallen in love with a boy named Johnny (Peter McDonald), so when Johnny unexpectedly travels to England in search of a job, Felicia wants to follow him -- especially since she's pregnant, a fact that she's keeping secret from her family, as well as Johnny. However, Johnny's family refuses to give her his address, so she leaves for Birmingham with only a sketchy idea of his whereabouts. Shortly after arriving, Felicia encounters Joseph Ambrose Hilditch (Bob Hoskins), the meticulous manager of a catering concern. She needs a place to stay and he recommends a good bed-and-breakfast. They soon become friendly, but Hilditch is more than just a mildly eccentric middle-aged man with a taste for French cuisine: he's had a long history of using and abusing homeless women, and Felicia looks like she's doomed to be the next victim. Based on a novel by William Trevor, Felicia's Journey was shown in competition at the 1999 Cannes Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Brid Brennan - Mrs. Lysaght; Danny Turner - Young Hilditch; Claire Benedict - Miss Calligary
Credit
Chris Seagers - Art Director, Karen Glasser - Associate Producer, Leo Davis - Casting, Robert Lantos - Co-producer, Sandy Powell - Costume Designer, David J.Webb - First Assistant Director, Atom Egoyan - Director, Susan Shipton - Editor, Ralph Kamp - Executive Producer, Paul Tucker - Executive Producer, Kate Bush - Composer (Music Score), Mychael Danna - Composer (Music Score), Jim Clay - Production Designer, Paul Sarossy - Cinematographer, Bruce Davey - Producer, Brian Simmons - Sound/Sound Designer, Daniel Pellerin - Sound/Sound Designer, Keith Elliott - Sound/Sound Designer, Peter Kelly - Sound/Sound Designer, Steve Munro - Sound Editor, Andy Malcolm - Sound Editor, Sue Conley - Sound Editor, David Dranie Taylor - Sound Editor, Tim Roberts - Sound Editor, Atom Egoyan - Screenwriter, William Trevor - Book Author
Atom Egoyan's Felicia's Journey features a score by Mychael Danna, who also composed scores for Egoyan's The Sweet Hereafter as well as for 8MM and Kama Sutra: A Tale Of Love. Felicia's Journey's Celtic-inspired score reflects the film's tale of a poor, pregnant Irish girl searching for the child's father in England. ~ Heather Phares, All Music Guide
Felicia (Elaine Cassidy), an Irish teenager, travels to Birmingham, England, hoping to find the boyfriend who made her pregnant but who then left Ireland without leaving an address. She accepts the help of a middle-aged man (Bob Hoskins), who appears friendly, but whose secret and sinister backstory is gradually revealed. Details of Felicia's relationships with her boyfriend Johnny - who joined the British Army - and her father, who disapproves of her relationship with a British soldier, are also recounted in flashback.
After taking a ferry to England and beginning a hopeless search to find the lawnmower factory in Birmingham where she believes Johnny now works, Felicia encounters an older man, Joe Hilditch (Bob Hoskins), a catering business owner who is also the son of an eccentric TV chef, Gala (Arsinée Khanjian). Hilditch offers to help her, however his motives for doing so are initially unclear, and it is subsequently suggested through flashback sequences that he has in the past befriended but then turned on vulnerable young women. He refers Felicia to a Bed and Breakfast hotel and offers to drive her to a factory that he suggests could be the one she is looking for, which is on the way to the hospital where the unmarried Hilditch claims he is going to visit his wife. Felicia fails to find Johnny at the factory, but while she is out of the car, Hilditch goes through her bags and steals her money. Subsequently Felicia comes across a Jamaican Christian witnessee who offers Felicia a free overnight at a church home. While staying at the hostel, Felicia discovers that her money has gone, and after appearing to accuse others at the home of stealing the money, flees the hostel for Hilditch's house.
Hilditch has meanwhile discovered Johnny's whereabouts, in the barracks where he is still serving with the army, but does not disclose this to Felicia. He does however tell her that his wife has died, and that she suggested that Felicia abort her unborn child. After the abortion, which Hilditch pays for, he takes her back to his house and gives her an overdose of sleeping pills. While digging out in his garden, the Jamaican Christian parishioner and a new convert enter his yard and begin to preach about Jesus. Hilditch feels flashes of guilt and confesses that he did, in fact, steal and cheat Felicia. Upstairs in the house, Felicia awakens from her sleep and struggles down the stairs. Hilditch finds her trying to escape the house, but allows her to leave. He then walks to his kitchen, where he hangs himself from a clothesline.
In This Corner (1985) ·Gross Misconduct (1993) ·Sarabande (1997) ·Krapp's Last Tape (2000) ·
Short Films
Howard in Particular (1979) ·After Grad with Dad (1980) ·Peep Show (1981) ·Open House (1982) ·Men: A Passion Playground (1985) ·Looking for Nothing (1988) ·Montréal vu par... / Montreal Sextet segment: En passant (In Passing) (1991) ·A Portrait of Arshile (1995) ·The Line (2000) ·
Diaspora (2001) ·Chacun son cinéma / To Each His Cinema segment: Artaud Double Bill (2007) ·
