Felicia's Journey

Bomb Rating: 

Frankly, I suspect that Egoyan has met some hot babe and is trying to get laid by exposing his feminist side.

This movie shouldn't be called "Felicia's Journey"; it should be called "Hilditch's Journey" since it's less about Felicia (Elaine Cassidy) than about Hilditch (Bob Hoskins), and Bob Hoskins gets top billing anyway. Presumably, somebody pointed this out to director Atom ("The Sweet Hereafter") Egoyan, but when they discussed calling it "Hilditch's Journey" somebody probably said "what the hell is a Hilditch?"

So, "Felicia's Journey" it is, and boy is she some kind of idiot. A naïve 17-year-old from Ireland, Felicia gets impregnated by an Englishman who then leaves without giving her a forwarding address. She never wonders why this is until she travels to England and can't find the guy. Does she ever say to herself, "Hmmm, maybe he doesn't want to be found?" Of course not. Instead she wanders all over England until she meets Hilditch, a catering manager.

An even better title for this film would have been "Men Suck," except that doesn't really convey the intellectual, art house mood Egoyan is shooting for. The father of Felicia's baby dumps her. Then, her father tells her she's a whore. Then Hilditch takes her in and eventually reveals a disturbing behavioral pattern. Men, it seems, are evil. Frankly, I suspect that Egoyan has met some hot babe and is trying to get laid by exposing his feminist side.

Thus, in a very short span of time, Felicia manages to find almost all the ways a young girl can get screwed. Ultimately, of course, she learns from this experience, suggesting that if more naïve Irish lasses were done wrong perhaps that country wouldn't be in such a fog.

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