Felicia's Journey (1999)

Synopsis: Stumbling through the beautifully rendered industrial Midlands, England, in clunky platform shoes, hair fashioned in a childlike ponytail, the young Irish Felicia (Cassidy) plows along in search of... Stumbling through the beautifully rendered industrial Midlands, England, in clunky platform shoes, hair fashioned in a childlike ponytail, the young Irish Felicia (Cassidy) plows along in search of the boyfriend who impregnated her and promised to write. Along the way she meets the kindly, middle-aged Joseph Hilditch who offers to help her find her love. However, all is not as it seems--the mild-mannered catering manager of a large factory is, in fact, unhinged. As the story unfolds we follow his attempts to befriend and earn the trust of the guileless Felicia--who, as a product of Irish old world superstition and family dysfunction (a world that Egoyan reveals in sparing yet memorably atmospheric glimpses) is utterly clueless as to his motives. Hilditch, played with a creepy undercurrent intensity by Hoskins, also manages to be truly sympathetic at the same time. A bachelor, he obsessively and ritualistically prepares torturously detailed meals for himself--instructed via videotapes of an old TV cooking program hosted by his late, overbearing French mother, who had forced her unattractive, socially graceless and unwilling young son to be her guinea pig. The legacy of his mother's effect on him is revealed in Hilditch's own precise, neurotic focus on cooking; and in a quiet sub-hobby--meeting and befriending young women who eventually disappear from his life. The film chronicles his latest "relationship" with the singular Felicia. [More]

Starring: Bob Hoskins, Elaine Cassidy, Arsinee Khanjian, Peter McDonald

Starring: Bob Hoskins, Elaine Cassidy, Arsinee Khanjian, Peter McDonald, Gerard McSorley

Director: Atom Egoyan

Director: Atom Egoyan
Screenwriter: Atom Egoyan
Producer: Bruce Davey
Composer: Mychael Danna

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