Plot Details: This opinion reveals major details about the movie's plot.

When a film makes no pretense of being a serious character study, I can be the epitome of generosity in suspending my disbelief and accepting whatever plot contrivances the writers care to throw my way to spin a tale. On the other hand, when a film purports to be a legitimate attempt to depict characters and study their motivations and development, I can be a terrible taskmaster. I do not believe that Atom Egoyan's film Felicia's Journey was meant to be a piece of fluff (it's about as far from fluff as feasible), so I can't help but be harsh in my appraisal of what I found to be some major shortcomings in a film which was otherwise phenomenally well made.

I can highly recommend this film for its superb acting, for its interesting characters, for its sublime cinematography, and for the tension of its pacing. As a whole though, the story of Felicia's Journey left me feeling very unsatisfied. A ridiculous climax, a terribly cheesy epilogue, and, most frustratingly, character development that was either unnecessary, implausible, ambiguous, or just downright unbelievable spoiled the overall effect of this film for me to the extent that I can't recommend it to those who are more interested in story than style and performance.

The Story

Felicia is a lonely Irish lass who lives with her stern father and bed-ridden centenarian great grandmother. Innocent and trusting, she is courted and seduced by an attractive young Irishman who makes her feel special. Felicia's brief courtship comes to an end when the young man leaves for England to look for work without giving her a means of contacting him. Despite village gossip that the lad is a traitor who has gone off to join the British army, Felicia firmly believes that he is employed in a lawn mower factory. Her father makes it clear that he doesn't buy this story at all, and that no child of his should disgrace the family by having aught to do with such a turncoat.

When Felicia confesses to her father that she is pregnant, his cruel and intolerant response is to disown her. Thus more alone than ever, she sets off for England to find her Johnny. Armed only with her innocence and a small amount of cash she has borrowed from her great grandmother, Felicia arrives in Birmingham—one of England's largest, most industrialized cities—to begin her futile search for Johnny.

But the fate of innocents so often entails falling prey to those of evil intent. It is hardly surprising then that poor Felicia chances into the path of Mr. Hilditch, a man with a tortured past and twisted present. What becomes of her and Mr. Hilditch is a chilling, tense tale, and Egoyan creates a dreadful suspense in revealing the story of these characters.

Unfortunately, some of the rationale behind the characters' actions is questionable, and the whole tale is closed with a remarkably cheesy resignation and pseudo-optimism that follows on the heels of a completely ridiculous, credibility-stretching moment of instant self-realization and redemption that left me just shaking my head in disbelief.

The Actors

Newcomer Elaine Cassidy delivers a strong and believable performance as Felicia—all the more impressive because she really doesn't deliver that many lines in this film. Her posture, body language, and facial expressions are actually more her vehicle for character development than what she has to say. Cassidy's eyes make you believe in her innocence and helplessness even more convincingly than words would ever do. If you can get through Cassidy's performance without silently uttering a "poor thing" at least once during the course of this film, remind me never to come to you for sympathy!

Bob Hoskins as Mr. Hilditch is nothing shy of remarkable here. So convincing was his performance that I may never be able to see a mild-mannered, solicitous, middle-aged man again without wondering what sinister psychopath lurks beneath the veneer. Creepy, creepy, creepy!

Arsinée Khanjian (Egoyan's s.o.) delivers a totally camp and ebullient performance as Hilditch's mother as seen in the video tapes of her TV chef show. I laughed aloud during her performance. (There are those who hesitate to see films with me in public because I embarrass them when I laugh while the rest of the audience is deadly silent—I admit to a rather dark sense of humor.) Despite the grim nature of this film, trust me, there are a lot of darkly funny bits, and I don't think Egoyan or Khanjian would mind knowing that they got the laughs from me that they must have been intending here. [Despite a terrific performance, I do have problems with the light in which Egoyan depicted Hilditch's mother, but I'll get to that later.]

Danny Turner as the young Hilditch looked like he had been plucked straight out of the '50s, and the pained expressions on his pudgy face from the retro flicks perfectly transferred into Hoskin's looks of middle-aged anguish. Not just great acting and direction, but superb casting here.

The only performance which was less than noteworthy in this film was Claire Benedict's Miss Calligary, the missionary. If Ms. Benedict is truly Jamaican, I'll eat my hat (hey, an Advisor hat has to be good for something!)—the script and her accent just didn't cut it for me. Too much of a stereotype and too wooden a performance made every one of Benedict's scenes an annoyance to me. Other than that though, the remainder of the cast delivered solid 5 star performances.

The Score

Many critics were outspoken in their dislike of Mychael Danna's score for the film 8 mm. Ever the odd one out, I found Danna's score for that film to be one of the few things I was able to appreciate about it. Surprising then that Danna's score for Felicia's Journey really got on my nerves. I found it overbearing to the point of annoyance—from the opening soppy dancehall ballad, to the military tattoo drum sequences in scenes of impending doom, to the Irish laments, it was all just a bit too obtrusive for my tastes. Although I will admit to enjoying the discordant background with the Irish ballad overlay during the final credits, this is one soundtrack I'd never yearn to capture on CD. I'm being generous in awarding 2 stars to the score.

The Cinematography

Few would argue that Egoyan sets up scenes beautifully, and Paul Sarossy (also Egoyan's cinematographer on The Sweet Hereafter, Exotica, and The Adjuster) realizes those scenes with faultless excellence. Visually, this film is stunning, from its pastoral landscapes, to the gritty industrial cityscapes, from the juxtaposition of '50s TV videos to real-time action, from camera angles to lighting, lush is the obvious word that comes to mind. For visuals, another solid 5 star rating for this film.

Poor Felicia's Road is Full of Plot Holes

This is the area where an otherwise 5 star film becomes a 3 star one because of unnecessary plot elements, character motivations that fail to make sense, and the fact that just about everyone behaves out of character at some point.

Those averse to plot spoilers should just skip this section altogether. Sorry, but I can't justifiably gripe without giving quite a bit away.

• Why does Mrs. Lysaght behave as she does toward Felicia?

Is she ashamed of what her son is doing or has done? Does she know that Johnny doesn't love Felicia? Does she want to protect Felicia from Johnny or protect her son from Felicia? Is she just bitter and twisted? Egoyan really gives his viewers no clue, so that other than serving as a plot device to demonstrate that Felicia did try to ascertain Johnny's whereabouts, these scenes with Mrs. Lysaght serve no real purpose.

• Was Hilditch's mother really responsible for her son's dysfunctional behavior?

It is implied that she was, and yet as viewers we see nothing inherently terrible about Hilditch's mother. She chastises him mildly on screen, and through his reactions to the video tapes we can see that these moments of discomfort and humiliation still make him cringe. But we are given no real reason to understand how this mother/son relationship could have engendered Hilditch's current psychopathic tendencies.

Egoyan has commented on his decision to depict Hilditch's mother in this particular manner.* And while I can appreciate the fact that Egoyan did not want to yet again present viewers with the well-worn serial killer cliché of the bad mother being to blame, I can't help feeling that his softened depiction of the mother's role was odd. He still used the mother for the purpose of identifying the stimulus to Hilditch's deviant behavior. If Egoyan's intent was to show that our dysfunctional behavior is more to do with skewed perceptions than actual occurrences from our past, it begs the question whether our pasts indeed shape us at all, since it is not the events but merely our perception of them that affect us. (In the William Trevor novel upon which Egoyan based his screenplay, the mother/child relationship is sexualized, and would at least offer a more concrete link between Hilditch's present obsessions and modus operandi than Egoyan's film seems to offer.) Norman Bates' behavior made sense to me in a way that Hilditch's fails to do.

• What purpose did Hilditch's search for Johnny serve?

We are never given any reason for why Hilditch attempted to locate Johnny, or even of how he would have known which of the young men on the army base happened to be him. It would seem that Egoyan had to have Hilditch know what Johnny looked like in order for him to recognize Johnny when he just happens to come into the pub where Felicia and Hilditch are having a drink. Are we expected to believe that perhaps Hilditch is experiencing conflicting emotions, that part of him really does want to help Felicia find her young man? We're never given any reason to expect that to be the case. So why introduce this element at all?

• Why was Hilditch so intent upon getting Felicia to have an abortion?

Was it his reluctance to murder a young girl with a child in her womb? If so, why? Or was it his hope to have Felicia all to himself? Was he perhaps conflicting again and honestly hoping to spare both Felicia and her family humiliation? We never know, nor does Egoyan present any logical clues to color our interpretation.

• Hilditch's epiphany in the garden was consummately absurd.

That boingggg you hear is my credibility snapping. I couldn't buy this climactic scene. It was hilarious in a slapstick sort of way, and the utter absurdity of it made a farce of the entire logic of the film.

I have a few other gripes, but I think you get the idea. I was very impressed with the acting and (for the most part) with Egoyan's script. I was definitely knocked out by the cinematography. But the story itself just had too many shortcomings for me to recommend this film except to those who prefer style over story.
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*http://www.popmatters.com/film/interviews/egoyan-atom.html [interview with Egoyan]

Recommended: No

Viewing Format: VHS
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age