Felicia's Journey

A thriller set in England. Felicia comes from Ireland. She is young, pregnant, and looking for her boyfriend; she believes he works at a factory in England. She does not even have an address. She walks the industrial district, asks at the factories, and nobody knows him. A man helps her. Hilditch runs a factory canteen; polite, orderly, living alone. He gives her directions, then offers a lift, then suggests she stay at his house. His own life follows a very particular order. In the evenings he watches tapes of an old cookery programme and works through his mother's recipes step by step; the kitchen is a ceremony for him. From there the film tells two stories together: the girl's search and the man's past. In the flashbacks his relationship with his mother appears, and a record accumulates: other young women he has helped before. What the narrative is interested in is not violence but courtesy: Hilditch never raises his voice in any scene, and the danger sits entirely inside that calm. The source is a novel by William Trevor. Bob Hoskins plays Hilditch, in what counts among his best work. Elaine Cassidy plays Felicia. Arsinée Khanjian is in the cast. Atom Egoyan wrote and directed. Who it is for: anyone who likes slow psychological thrillers and narratives built on character. Who it is not for: anyone looking for pace; the film is very calm and delays its tension on purpose.