A slow burner that ultimately fizzles out, Felicia's Journey offers things to admire along the way, but at its core it's not intelligent enough, substantial enough or interesting enough - it doesn't tell us anything new, or even anything altogether credible. The best reason for seeing it is Elaine Cassidy as Felicia, the innocent abroad, who's very natural and credible (and very pretty). Bob Hoskins gets a chance to do something different as Hilditch, and - especially by contrast with that natural quality Cassidy has - seems studied. It's a technically excellent performance and there are some fine, subtle bits, but - perhaps because of his sheer familiarity as an actor - I was always conscious of his accent as put on; I admired but wasn't drawn in.
Much the same is true of the rest of the movie, with its adroit control of narrative structure, trademark flashbacks aplenty, and its handsome cinematography. (Ironically its saturated colours often make industrial Birmingham look as beautiful in its way as the conventionally picturesque Ireland; I'm not sure if that was the plan.) The music tends to alienate one too: there are some very oddly scored scenes that struck me as over-wrought and intrusive; perhaps they were meant to evoke the disorder inside the mind of Hilditch, but if so I think that was a misjudgment.
So, worth seeing, especially for its often mesmerizing early scenes; it's just a pity that the pay-off doesn't pay (I can't say too much more about why that is without going into spoiler territory, but the problems are with the conception of the Bob Hoskins character). A pity, after Egoyan's fine "The Sweet Hereafter", that the material here just wasn't strong enough.
Much the same is true of the rest of the movie, with its adroit control of narrative structure, trademark flashbacks aplenty, and its handsome cinematography. (Ironically its saturated colours often make industrial Birmingham look as beautiful in its way as the conventionally picturesque Ireland; I'm not sure if that was the plan.) The music tends to alienate one too: there are some very oddly scored scenes that struck me as over-wrought and intrusive; perhaps they were meant to evoke the disorder inside the mind of Hilditch, but if so I think that was a misjudgment.
So, worth seeing, especially for its often mesmerizing early scenes; it's just a pity that the pay-off doesn't pay (I can't say too much more about why that is without going into spoiler territory, but the problems are with the conception of the Bob Hoskins character). A pity, after Egoyan's fine "The Sweet Hereafter", that the material here just wasn't strong enough.