Dan Slevin recommends this understated and moving British tale, which stars Jim Broadbent and Penelope Wilton.
Harold Fry, as played by the great Jim Broadbent, is a quintessential English middle-class retiree. He lives with his wife, Maureen played by Penelope Wilton, in a not terribly picturesque suburban street in a very beautiful part of the southwest: Kingsbridge.
Life is all about mowing the lawn, chatting affably to the neighbours, going to the corner shop, having tea at teatime and - apparently - living a life so consumed with regret that you barely know yourself.
Harold receives a letter from an old work colleague who he hasn't heard from for a while. Queenie Hennessy worked with him at the brewery he represented - an average sort of job I suppose but the choice of the alcohol trade is an interesting one as he seems to not care for it now.
Queenie is unwell in Berwick, which is about as far away from Kingsbridge as you can get and still - just - be in England. She's in a hospice, in fact, and is saying goodbye
Not really knowing what to do with this news, Harold writes a slightly pathetic note in reply and heads to the postbox to send it. But he knows he hasn't done this right, maybe there's even more about his friendship with Queenie that needs to be attended to, maybe he should do something about it.
When, somehow, even the post office itself doesn't seem like the right place to post his letter, Harold meets a young woman working in a service station who gives him some advice.
Completely ill-equipped - emotionally and physically - Harold begins walking in the hope that her hope (to see him again) will keep her alive. Apple Maps tells me the distance is 740km with a considerable amount of that uphill. And Apple Maps tells me that you can walk it in nearly seven days but that's misleading because they assume you are going 24 hours a day and also that you are not a pensioner like Harold. In the book this film is based on, it takes him 87 days.
This is now a road movie which means Harold will come into contact with strangers who will change his life - and some whose life he will change.
There's the young homeless man who decides to travel with Harold on his pilgrimage, and you realise that sometimes the hopeless among us don't need hope for themselves, they need to experience hope for others in order to see the possibility of change.
A BAFTA and Oscar winner for supporting actor, Broadbent doesn't often get a lead role as meaty as this and he really is at his finest. Vulnerable but determined, vague about his purpose but knowing that doing nothing is not an option any longer.
He's supported by Penelope Wilton whose character is less sympathetic - especially a revelation we get later on that I believe is one of the few diversions that screenwriter Rachel Joyce makes from her own 2012 novel.
The direction, by Hettie Macdonald, is first-rate, supported by very fine cinematography from Kate McCullough who photographed the extraordinary Irish film The Quiet Girl last year.
This is only Hettie Macdonald's second theatrical feature film - the last was in 1996 would you believe - but she's been making terrific television since then including directing all the episodes of Normal People in 2020.
I couldn't help comparing this film with another recent film about loneliness, ageing and grief - the Tom Hanks vehicle A Man Called Otto. Otto ended up using sentimentality to produce a satisfying conclusion - nothing wrong with that - but HAROLD FRY chooses sincerity.
Not all of the story works - or at least didn't for me - but the emotional beats I found very moving indeed. Fry's physical and mental deterioration on the journey gives us something very real to care about. Evidently, the film was shot in story and pilgrimage order allowing Broadbent to dishevel as it goes on.
I recommend The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry and won't be too surprised if Broadbent picks up the Best Actor BAFTA to go along with his Supporting Actor one from over 20 years ago.
The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry is rated M for offensive language, drug use, sexual references & suicide. It's playing in select cinemas across New Zealand now.
