We read The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry when I ran a book club in North Yorksire over ten years ago (where it was really well received.) It was Rachel Joyce's debut novel based on a radio play she'd written for the BBC in 2007 starring Anton Lesser and Anna Massey. Her book would go on to become a Sunday Times Bestseller and on 28 April of this year (i.e. last week) her screenplay of the novel of the play got its first cinematic release. And yesterday I went to see it.
Like the book, I can't recommend this film highly enough. Despite its underlying darkness there's enough light creeping in to this most unlikely of road movies to enrich the soul. Jim Broadbent and Penelope Wilton are so believable as the elderly yet loveless couple who for 25 years have skirted round an elephant so big they've forgotten how to be civil to one another. Then one day a letter drops on the doormat of their Devon home and before you can say A to Z our protagonist is yomping by the side of the thundering M5 motorway bound for a hospice in Berwick on Tweed; in his gardening shoes. It made me cry in places, tho’ that's not unusual these days (the book did too, I seem to remember) and the accompanying soundtrack is like a good waiter - brilliant yet invisible at the same time. As I say, it's only just come out so do try and catch it - it really does work on the big screen.
The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry - Trailer (2023)
We saw it yesterday.Very good
ReplyDeleteBroadbent is brilliant
As with everything Broadbent does he's totally and utterly believable. (From the same school of acting as Timothy Spall, I'd say.)
DeleteI too read that book when it came out and was moved by it (was it 10 years ago though...argh) but wondered if the film would do it justice. It seems it does so hope to see it soon. Thanks for the write-up.
ReplyDeleteA few in the book club I'm currently in went to see it yesterday - I'll debrief them tomorrow at our May meeting; those who didn't go will, I think, want to read the book instead.
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