Producers: Juliet Dowling, Kevin Loader and Marilyn Milgrom Director: Hettie MacDonald Screenplay: Rachel Joyce Cast: Jim Broadbent, Penelope Wilton, Linda Bassett, Earl Cave, Joseph Mydell, Daniel Frogson, Monika Gossmann, Naomi Wirthner, Joy Richardson, Nina Singh, Paul Thornley, Andrew Leung, Claire Rushbrook and Nick Sampson Distributor: Quiver Distribution
Grade: C+
Hettie MacDonald’s film about grief and rebirth, based on a screenplay that Rachel Joyce has adapted from her own well-received 2012 novel, tugs insistently at the heartstrings as it doles out, in neatly placed flashbacks, the reasons why the title character feels obligated to complete his titular journey. But even the sterling work of Jim Broadbent and Penelope Wilton, as Harold Fry and his wife Maureen, can’t entirely overcome the mawkishness and manipulation at the center of the movie.
Fry (Broadbent) is a suburban retiree living with his wife (Wilton) in Devonshire, in extreme southwest England, when he receives a postcard from one of his former co-workers, Queenie Hennessey (Linda Bassett), who informs him that she’s dying of cancer in a hospice in Berwick-upon-Tweed, the northernmost town in Northumbria. Maureen is taken aback by her husband’s strong reaction, for reasons that will be made clear later. And she’s somewhat concerned by his insistence on composing a letter to Queenie in response.
But her concern grows to something like panic, tinged with anger, when he goes out to mail the letter and doesn’t return. In his wandering around town he’s encountered a clerk (Nina Singh) at a convenience store, who tells him how her support helped an ailing aunt get through a bout of cancer. Pondering this, he calls the hospice and tells the staff to let Queenie know that he intends walking the more than five hundred miles to Berwick to see her, and that she must hold on until he gets there.
Thus begins the long trek, which in tone, if not in mode of transport, is not unlike the one that another noted British character actor, Timothy Spall, made in “The Last Bus” a few years ago. That trip was even longer—geographically reversed, from northern Scotland to Land’s End, the full length of the UK—and for a different purpose, to deliver his wife’s ashes to the spot where they met. But the emotional trajectory is much the same, emphasizing the kindness of people along the way and the fact that Harold’s mission becomes a news sensation, attracting a ragtag bunch of followers calling themselves pilgrims. Among those whose lives he touches are Martina (Monika Gossmann), an immigrant trained as a doctor but working as a cleaning lady; a gentleman (Nick Sampson), who bears his soul about a gay partner; and, most notably, Wilf (Daniel Frogson), an intense young fellow who attaches himself to Fry as sort of a first disciple.
Like “The Last Bus,” “Pilgrimage” uses flashbacks, but the ones here flesh out the backstory more dramatically, centering around the fate of the Frys’ son David (Earl Cave, with the character played in brief clips at earlier ages by Mark Mora and Braxton Koldney), and help explain Harold’s empathy with the troubled Wilf, as well as the reason why Harold feels he owes such a great debt to Queenie, whose relationship with him Maureen still broods over. There are also interruptions when Maureen, accompanied by their widowed neighbor Rex (Joseph Mydell), tracks Harold down and they have a talk over the obligatory cuppa.
The culmination of Harold’s effort naturally comes with dramatic roadblocks. Shedding his followers, who have been slowing him down, he’s near the end of his rope and ready to abandon the quest. Only an intervention from Maureen, along with some help from strangers (including that convenience store clerk, who reappears with secrets to disclose), puts him on the right path again, and he’s able to knock at the hospice door, be greeted by the ebullient Sister Philomena (Joy Richardson), and hang the crystal he’s been carrying as a gift in Queenie’s window. Its effect in the sunlight radiates, according to the coda, across England.
Since Joyce was responsible for adapting her novel, one must assume that the film accurately reflects the tone of the book, though details might have been changed. If so, the novel must have trafficked heavily in sentimentality and uplift, for the movie certainly does.
Still, it’s been made with loving care. The English countryside is caught in some gorgeous widescreen vistas by cinematographer Kate McCullough, and Christa Moore’s production design is convincing. Unfortunately the editing by Napoleon Stratogiannakis and Jon Harris is rather scraggly, and the soundtrack, with somewhat overripe background music by Ilan Eshkeri, could certainly have done without the sappy songs by Sam Lee and James Keay, which the former croons.
The cast, however, is splendid. The always reliable Broadbent brings some genuine humanity to Harold, a reticent, humble man struggling with an abiding sense of failure over past mistakes, and he’s coupled well with the Wilton, who brings her customary clipped delivery to stern, prickly Maureen, who’s clearly accustomed to dominating her spouse and only gradually succumbs to admitting her own flaws. The rest of the cast is fine, with Frogson and Gossmann called on to do some heavy lifting. Cave, it’s true, does go rather overboard in some scenes, and Bassett has only a few moments to register, but generally Hettie MacDonald, most of whose previous work has been in television, employs the actors as well as the script allows.
“The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry” is basically a slice of cinematic comfort food designed to make one feel the sunlight through the dramatic clouds, and though it can’t fully overcome the saccharine character of the contrived plot, the expertise on hand makes it go down quite easily.