# Felicia's Journey (1999)

### reviewed by
Greg King

FELICIA'S JOURNEY (M). (Icon/Twentieth Century Fox) Director: Atom Egoyan Stars: Bob Hoskins, Elaine Cassidy, Peter McDonald, Arsinee Khanjian, Gerard McSorley, Brid Brennan, Peter Turner, Calire Benedict Running time: 116 minutes.

Atom Egoyan leaves behind his native Canada to tackle this chilling, suspenseful psychological thriller about obsession and a uniquely fascinating and charismatic serial killer. Felicia's Journey is set against the background of the bleak urban wasteland of Britain's post industrial north, and Egoyan and regular cinematographer Paul Sargossy capture some haunting images and superb contrasts that beautifully underscore the themes of the grim narrative.

Felicia (Elaine Cassidy), a naive and shy young Irish lass who has a brief fling with Johnny (Peter McDonald), a local boy, who heads south to seek employment in Birmingham. That's the last she hears of him, and any efforts to forward letters to him are thwarted by Johnny's stonily resolute mother. When she learns that she is pregnant, Felicia sets off to find Johnny and determine their future together.

Her search is a futile one, until she meets Hilditch (Bob Hoskins), a lonely, middle aged catering supervisor at a large foundry. The son of a famous former television cook, with whom he still seems obsessed, Hilditch lives alone in a big empty house that resonates with anachronistic touches from the '50's. He initially offers Felicia some sympathetic advice, and agrees to help her in her search. But Hilditch has another reason for helping this lonely, lost and frightened young woman, which is teasingly made clear through a series of flashbacks and video recordings.

Egoyan draws some unnerving parallels between these two lonely, tainted people, who are, in many ways, outcasts from the regular world.

Hoskins plays Hilditch with remarkable understatement and poise, giving him a sympathetic edge and atmosphere of compassion that belies his monstrous nature. Not since Norman Bates has the screen produced a cinematic psycho who has been so traumatised by his overbearing and suffocating mother as Hilditch. Cassidy's strong performance imbues the confused Felicia with a touching naivete and a vulnerability, yet also gives her a hidden strength that slowly emerges as the full impact of her betrayal sinks in.

Felicia's Journey is based on a novel by William Trevor, and it seems to resonate with many of those themes common to Egoyan's past films (The Sweet Hereafter, Exotica, etc). Egoyan shapes the narrative with his usual distinctive style, creating an unnerving and disturbing atmosphere. Felicia's Journey is far more chilling in what it suggests than in what it shows. The restraint with which Egoyan directs serves as an example for many other contemporary directors, who equate horror with explicit depictions of blood and gore, dismembered bodies and lots of graphic, gory effects. He teasingly merges the past with the present to inform audiences about the characters and their motivations.

    ***
    greg king
    http://www.netau.com.au/gregking

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