It was an unlikely pilgrimage that led me to the cinema on bank holiday Monday.
Well… not exactly. I knew that I wanted to see this film, I asked Jed if he could get me a free ticket, and I took the number eight to town. I sat on a row with a fellow solo cinema visitor, an old lady who nodded and smiled her way through the film.
The film begins when Harold receives a letter in the post from an old friend who is in a hospice. Struggling to write a reply, he passes multiple post boxes and picks up half a pint of milk on his way home. After speaking to the checkout register at the garage, he is inspired to walk from his home in South Devon to Berwick in the hope of saving his friend.
Jim Broadbent is a formidable actor. He paints a believable picture of Harold Fry as an unformidable, yet very likeable man. Most of the plot is told through flashbacks of moments in Harold’s life that he remembers as he walks.
We learn that he had a son called David and that the two of them struggled to get along. Harold imagines seeing his son on his travels, taking the opportunity to apologise. As the film progresses, Harold is seen caring for David through his alcohol and drug dependency, demonstrating a paternal side. This relationship is mirrored in the relationship he develops with Wilf, a young boy who joins Harold on his journey.
My favourite moment of the film is when Harold is sat in a café at Exeter train station and a man sits down opposite him. The man offers him half of his fruit cake and precedes to tell him that he meets a young man every week in the city, and they do things that nobody else knows about. He asks Harold whether he thinks he should buy the man new shoes as his have a hole in and he doesn’t want his feet to get wet. Broadbent’s facial expressions are on point as he processes the information and doesn’t have the slightest idea how to react, eventually advising him to buy the man new shoes.
Monika Gossmann also does a very good job at portraying Martina, a kind stranger who offers Harold a place to stay after he collapses on the street. At the beginning of her scene, she seems blunt but compassionate, telling Harold that he fucked, his body is fucked, and his shoes are fucked. As she dresses his infected blisters, she tells Harold that she is a trained doctor but can only find work as a cleaner in England. “You think your feet are bad? You should see some of the toilets I clean.”
I was very excited when I saw Linda Bassett (Call the Midwife) play the role of Queenie in the flashbacks but was disappointed by her very short camera time. In Harold’s flashbacks, she is seen as a close companion of Harold, offering him a boiled sweet during their drive home.
I understand the need to have an older actor play Queenie in hospice scene due to the amount of time passed, but she looked so remotely like Linda Bassett that I expected Harold to exclaim in his Paddington Bear voice “oh I am sorry, I think I’ve got the wrong room”.
This film is very watchable, helped tremendously by Broadbent’s ability to play Harold Fry as an every man. He doesn’t want a fuss, he only needs what he needs, and he has made a promise, so he will stick with it. With a darker ending, this could have been a Ken Loach film. Did I want a darker ending? Perhaps, but it’s a good job this film didn’t make me cry in the cinema on my own!
Picturehouse’s U25 Membership scheme offers £4.99 tickets for all films between Monday-Thursday so what better way to catch all the latest releases than with cheap tickets at City Screen?