Walk on By
If only Hettie Macdonald’s adaptation of the Booker finalist were as interesting as The Proclaimers made 500 miles seem.
THE UNLIKELY PILGRIMAGE OF HAROLD FRY
Director: Hettie Macdonald • Writer: Rachel Joyce, based on the novel by Joyce
Featuring: Jim Broadbent, Penelope Wilton, Linda Bassett, Earl Cave, Daniel Frogson, Joseph Mydell, Nina Singh
UK • 1hr 47mins
Opens Hong Kong November 30 • IIA
Grade: C+
OMG, so little happens in Hettie Macdonald’s The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry. What we’re supposed to come away thinking (maybe) is that this was a movie about regret, guilt, kindness (full disclsoure, I detest “kindness” as a theme), and that it’s never too late to live in the moment. What we actually come away thinking is that this is the most painfully British movie to come down the pipe this year – possibly this decade. Now, Harold Fry is based on a bestselling (!) book by Rachel Joyce, who adapted the screenplay, so it very well may be a case of the “charm” of the page not translating to the screen. Whatever the case, there’s no denying the aggressive twee factor that’s a huge, huge dealbreaker for many. Add to that it’s a story about a pair of olds, one pottering across England, the other keeping a stiff upper lip at home, and it’s a recipe for somnolence. If meandering, neo-Forrest Gump (Forrest Gramp as a friend called it) adventuring among normies sounds like your thing then godspeed, pilgrim. The book was longlisted for the damn Booker Prize, so Joyce’s sentimentality spoke to someone. On screen, however, it’s just cloyingly quaint. Macdonald, who’s been working in TV since her 1996 queer fantasy Beautiful Thing – fantasy as in that’s not how London council housing drunks react to their gay teen sons – keeps things pedestrian (no pun intended) and inoffensive.
We see this in real time
Harold Fry (Jim Broadbent, Hot Fuzz, Paddington) and his wife Maureen (Penelope Wilton, Downton Abbey, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel) are living quiet, retired lives of mundanity with a dash of melancholy in small town Devon, which goes sideways when Harold receives a letter about an old colleague, Queenie Hennessy (Linda Bassett, Call the Midwife, Calendar Girls), dying in hospice care. He pens a perfunctory, extremely English note of condolences (on personal letterhead, natch) and walks off to post it. But on the way, his and Queenie’s past comes roaring back, and just like that he decides to walk all the way to Berwick-Upon-Tweed – roughly 620 kilometres – in his practical but not long-distance ready loafers, calling from payphones (hee hee hee) along the way, imploring her to “wait for [him].” This being the 2020s, the media gets wind of his pilgrimage and Harold picks up a cult of bored, aimless types along the way and becomes a social sensation. You’ll recognise the kind of “life affirming” encounters he has along the way: Martina (Monika Gossman), a Slovakian surgeon unable to practice in the UK; Wilf (Daniel Frogson), a junkie that reminds Harold of his estranged son, David (Earl Cave); and Kate (Naomi Wirthner) the leader of the cult that lets Harold off the leadership hook. He picks up a mangy dog companion. Maureen simmers with very English rage at Harold’s sudden devotion to Queenie. She expresses this rage through robust vacuuming. Sorry. Hoovering.
I’ll admit there’s something refreshing about the blandness of Harold’s deep, dark secret (did you think there was no deep, dark secret?) and the prosaic nature of the yawning, unspoken chasm between Harold and Maureen, one stemming from painful memories of their son (full disclosure, I also hate the persistent message that the only valid pain is family based). Not everything needs to be high drama, and in its defence The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry’s raison d’être is trading in ordinary sadness. And that may be moving as a Sunday read curled up in your favourite armchair. But as a film, despite the comforting presence of Broadbent and Wilton, and a tiny bit of visual creativity from cinematographer Kate McCullough, particularly in Harold’s garish recollections of David, it just kind of sits there, even as it gets more emotionally worked up than any Brit ever would. Ironically there’s not enough drama. There’s no chance Maureen will fall into the arms of the Frys neighbour, Rex (Joseph Mydell). There’s no worry that Harold will be mugged and left on the side of a highway. Macdonald and Joyce just want us to consider the power of unspoken remorse – and reconciliation – and carry on. I’d expect nothing less from the most British movie of the year. — DEK