Jim Broadbent stars in The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry. Image: Supplied.
The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry is an unlikely story precisely because Harold Fry has never done anything of substance with his life.
We first meet Harold (Jim Broadbent) at his home in the south of England. It is a pleasant home on a pleasant street and his wife Maureen (Penelope Wilton) busies herself around the house.
One morning, Harold receives a letter from a former colleague, Queenie Hennessy, (Linda Bassett), who tells him she is dying in a hospice on the other side of the country in Northumberland.
Harold scribbles a note to pass on his condolence and heads to the letter box to post it, which he cannot. He moves to the next letter box and is still unable to post it.
He has a chance encounter with a young woman at a petrol station who speaks to him about faith, which is the catalyst for this retired former brewery manager to walk the 500 miles or more to see Queenie.
In his mind, if he keeps walking she has to stay alive; he’s not a religious person, but this is definitely an act of faith.
He phones Maureen at various intervals, who clearly thinks her husband has lost the plot, even suggesting to a doctor at one point that he may have Alzheimers – clearly an act of both frustration and desperation.
Harold begins reflecting on his life during this walk; he has been estranged from their only son, David (Earl Cave, Nick Cave’s son, and whose real-life twin brother Arthur died in a cliffside accident eight years ago at the age of 15).
The moments with David are a sequence of muted flashbacks. Harold doesn’t seem to know how to react as a father, beginning with David’s childhood and the offer of a university place at Cambridge, then his increasing anger and descent into alcohol and drugs.
Harold isn’t emotionally equipped to deal with any of it, which is why this trek to the north of England can and probably should be some sort of redemption. But, of course, it is never as clear as that and our protagonist is filled with understandable fear and self-doubt.
He meets many people along the way: there’s a man at Exeter train station who visits once a week to see a younger man with whom he appears to be in love, but doubts his own worth.
On his walk, Harold is helped by a woman doctor from the former Eastern bloc who can only get work as a cleaner. And there’s Wilf, a troubled youth who reminds Harold of David.
The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry started as a novel by Rachel Joyce, which was long-listed for the Booker Prize in 2012.
Joyce has adapted the novel with ease and grace for the screen. The movie has been realised by director Hettie McDonald, who has a long list of credits in British television and theatre.
But in the end, it is all about Harold. As he walks and as he turns over the things in his life he could have done, or could have done better, we see a man finally emerging into maturity after a lifetime of denial and quite possibly a certain obfuscation.
That’s why this film belongs to Jim Broadbent.
It isn’t often you see an actor who both consumes every moment and disappears into it at the same time. The performance is utterly magnetic and heartfelt and you feel every moment with him without becoming maudlin or sentimental.
The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry is both incredibly gentle and magnificent in its subtlety. Four stars out of five.
Marcus Kelson is a Canberra writer and critic. The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry is screening at major cinema chains.
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