The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

 I had seen the trailer for this film so many times beforehand that I wasn't expecting any surprises.  And that proved to be the case.  It is emotionally manipulative, frequently predictable, requires considerable suspension of disbelief, and the ending is curiously unresolved.  All of which sounds like the preface to a very negative review, but I have to admit loved it, with the tears in my eyes a positive response.  

The movie is largely redeemed by two elements.  Firstly, at a time when the current tory government is busy turning the UK into a right wing dystopian shithole, it offers hope, or at least an upbeat view of the human condition.  Secondly, and much more predictably, it stars Jim Broadbent.

The premise is a simple one.  Harold (Broadbent) and Maureen (Penelope Wilton) are long retired, long suffering, existing in a marriage that has lost the ability to communicate (we know all this very quickly, despite little being said).  He receives a letter from an old colleague, Queenie Hennessy, telling him she is dying in a hospice in Berwick-upon-Tweed, hundreds of miles from his home in south Devon.   I going to post a reply he finds a chance remark from a shop assistant changing in his mind.  The letter wouldn't be enough to make up for what he'd done to Queenie, it needs more than that.  And Harold, who feels he's failed everyone and has never achieved anything in his life, decides to change that.  So he starts walking.  To the hospice.  With no preparation, no experience of walking any distance, and no notice to the bewildered Maureen, Mr Fry begins his pilgrimage, determined to walk all the way to save Queenie.

Along the way he meets many people, some help him, others he gives help to, at times it works both ways.  A pub photo and social media turn him into a celebrity, and others join the pilgrimage.  All that matters to everyone is Harold's (non religious) faith, his belief that if he keeps walking then Queenie will stay alive.  Along the way a series of flashbacks explains something of the reasons for his sense of failure, both in relation to Queenie and to the son he feels he let down so badly.  

A few of these encounters and characters are ill-judged, others add to learning more about the man Harold is.  As I said before, the ending really doesn't give us much.  And yet that doesn't matter.  Harold Fry is telling us is that trying, with a bit of faith in yourself, is often enough, whatever the outcome.  

Wilton is excellent with what she's given, which isn't nearly enough, and there could have been more to Queenie's story.  But none of this seems important beside Broadbent's performance.  Always reliable, this is one of his best.  Go and see Harold Fry.  Don't expect too much from the script, enjoy some stunning views, and marvel at the greatness of Jim.  Oh, and be prepared to cry a bit...