Felicia's Journey is a 1999 film starring Elaine Cassidy and Bob Hoskins, based on a prize winning 1994 novel by William Trevor. It was directed by Atom Egoyan. It was entered into the 1999 Cannes Film Festival.

Plot

Felicia (Elaine Cassidy), an Irish teenager, travels to Birmingham, England, hoping to find the boyfriend who made her pregnant but who then left Ireland without leaving an address. She accepts the help of a middle-aged man (Bob Hoskins), who appears friendly, but whose secret and sinister backstory is gradually revealed. Details of Felicia's relationships with her boyfriend Johnny - who joined the British Army - and her father, who disapproves of her relationship with a British soldier, are also recounted in flashback.

After taking a ferry to England and beginning a hopeless search to find the lawnmower factory in Birmingham where she believes Johnny now works, Felicia encounters an older man, Joe Hilditch (Bob Hoskins), a catering business owner who is also the son of an eccentric TV chef, Gala (Arsinée Khanjian). Hilditch offers to help her, however his motives for doing so are initially unclear, and it is subsequently suggested through flashback sequences that he has in the past befriended but then turned on vulnerable young women. He refers Felicia to a Bed and Breakfast hotel and offers to drive her to a factory that he suggests could be the one she is looking for, which is on the way to the hospital where the unmarried Hilditch claims he is going to visit his wife. Felicia fails to find Johnny at the factory, but while she is out of the car, Hilditch goes through her bags and steals her money. Subsequently Felicia comes across a Jamaican Christian witnessee who offers Felicia a free overnight at a church home. While staying at the hostel, Felicia discovers that her money has gone, and after appearing to accuse others at the home of stealing the money, flees the hostel for Hilditch's house.

Hilditch has meanwhile discovered Johnny's whereabouts, in the barracks where he is still serving with the army, but does not disclose this to Felicia. He does however tell her that his wife has died, and that she suggested that Felicia abort her unborn child. After the abortion, which Hilditch pays for, he takes her back to his house and gives her an overdose of sleeping pills. While digging out in his garden, the Jamaican Christian parishioner and a new convert enter his yard and begin to preach about Jesus. Hilditch feels flashes of guilt and confesses that he did, in fact, steal and cheat Felicia. Upstairs in the house, Felicia awakens from her sleep and struggles down the stairs. Hilditch finds her trying to escape the house, but allows her to leave. He then walks to his kitchen, where he hangs himself from a clothesline.

Cast

• Bob Hoskins ... Joe Hilditch
• Arsinée Khanjian ... Gala
• Elaine Cassidy ... Felicia
• Sheila Reid ... Iris
• Nizwar Karanj ... Sidney
• Ali Yassine ... Customs Officer
• Peter McDonald ... Johnny Lysaght
• Kriss Dosanjh ... Salesman
• Gerard McSorley ... Felicia's Father
• Marie Stafford ... Felicia's Great Grandmother (as Maire Stafford)

References

External links