An elderly man begins a remarkable journey after discovering that a former colleague has terminal cancer in Hettie Macdonald's adaptation of Rachel Joyce's best-selling novel.
Now 73, Jim Broadbent has traded for decades in a subtle mode of acting that means he disappears into characters. Unlike movie stars whose personas remain consistent across every picture they illuminate, Broadbent is an enigma. We do not know what he will do next. We only know that he will do it with integrity.
Harold Fry is a character whose emotional broadness would, in the wrong hands, make him a cartoon character, pumping his hammy fists at the heavens. Broadbent, however, opts for unsentimental expressive choices, and so tethers swollen motives to the ground. He has the intelligence to pull against the material, secure in the knowledge that love, grief and an inability to forgive oneself are embedded in the material and will seep out in tiny, heartrending doses.
That material is Rachel Joyce’s eponymous best-selling 2012 novel about a retired man living in Devon with his wife Maureen (Penelope Wilton) who receives word that an old friend, Queenie (Linda Bassett), is dying in a hospice in Berwick-upon-Tweed. He goes to post Queenie a letter, however a chance conversation with a blue-haired service station cashier (Nina Singh) prompts him to bridge over 500 miles of distance by walking there instead.
Along the way, he must reckon with the furious incomprehension of Maureen, the traumatic memories of what befell their son David (Earl Cave) and the question of why Queenie became embroiled in events. This backstory is parcelled out in flashbacks that bear out the meditative truth that only in silence can we make sense of our lives.
In the here and now, Harold – like Blanche DuBois – relies upon the kindness of strangers. Single-serving characters across the length of the country feed and take him in; an Eastern European doctor tends to his battered feet. As he walks, this previously glazed man takes on a beatific lightness, and the simple nature of his quest draws followers who hope to find answers to their own sorrows by joining this scraggly south coast Jesus.
It is a tremendously moving concept, powered by a deep belief in our human desire to help each other to make progress. Where it flounders is in the lack of visual imagination and supporting-character texture. In the literary context, distinctive flourishes sing, whereas in this translation to the screen both the people and the places that Harold encounters seem two dimensional.
Matching him in every dimension is Penelope Wilton whose Margaret has the unexciting job of working through her feelings while – suddenly –home alone, cooking soup and looking balefully at the phone. Above all else, this is a showcase for two phenomenal actors whose relationship holds both decades of recriminations and pockets of love. The subtext behind the pilgrimage is that an act of kindness from decades ago can stay with a person and compel them to shake off the shackles of shame. The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry is about the lengths that even skeptical people will go to for each other, a length that defies all logic.
Little White Lies is committed to championing great movies and the talented people who make them.
Published 24 Apr 2023
A lead role as immense as Jim Broadbent’s talents.
Jim Broadbent and Penelope Wilton drum up a weatherbeaten type of love that holds both suffering and grace.
The slew of one-note supporting characters diminish its power in the rear-view mirror.
Roger Michell’s swansong is a fittingly wholesome and heartwarming caper, an ode to Ealingesque whimsy and charm.
The inside story of the Hatton Garden diamond heist, with Michael Caine and Ray Winstone.
Little White Lies was established in 2005 as a bi-monthly print magazine committed to championing great movies and the talented people who make them. Combining cutting-edge design, illustration and journalism, we’ve been described as being “at the vanguard of the independent publishing movement.” Our reviews feature a unique tripartite ranking system that captures the different aspects of the movie-going experience. We believe in Truth & Movies.
