Rating: 
Summary: Bob Hoskins Outstanding in a Fine, Disturbing Movie
Review: The Sweet Hereafter is such a first-rate movie that I wanted to take another look at this one, which Egoyan made two years later. It's not in the same league as Hereafter, but it is an excellent, disturbing movie.
Bob Hoskins plays Joseph Hilditch, who runs a big kitchen operation to feed the employees of a factory. At night he cooks elaborate dinners in his own gadget-filled kitchen while watching old video tapes of a cooking show. The star of the show had been his mother, an enveloping presence who completely dominated young Joey. Then he eats his meals alone, listening to Mantovani and other standbys of the Fifties. He also occasionally helps out young women when they are in distress.
Felicia (Elaine Cassidy) has come to his city from Ireland to look for her lover, who left to find a better job and promised to write regularly. He never wrote and she found herself pregnant.
They meet. He takes her in. Through flashbacks and circumstance we learn that Hilditch is a disturbed and violent individual. The movie sets all this up in an uneasy, quiet, almost sympathetic way, and then deals with how these two deal with each other.
This isn't some sort of murder or horror story; Hoskins doesn't jump out of closets. It's about two damaged people in which more damage can happen. I liked it a lot.
The DVD transfer is very good
Rating: 
Summary: Not That Great Of A Journey
Review: This film is the the most pathetic serial killer film I've ever seen. Why? Because It has no suspernse what so ever. You would think that a film about a serial would be anything but boring but what you're getting in this peice of garbage is everything but exeptional. The only thing and I mean the only thing in this film that was even worthy was Bob Hoskin's preformance. I will not be seeing this film ever again and I hope that Atom Egoyan has learned a very important lesson in making so-called thillers because this one was so dull. The least Atom could have done for the audience was make Felicia's Journey "R" but instead he went with a happy PG-13 rating that DOES NOT cut it with this subject matter.
Rating:
Summary: A Nicely Detailed Character Study
Review: This film is, I must admit, my introduction to Egoyan's works. He is a director who comes highly recommended by a friend whose taste in films I admire. There is, indeed, much to admire about Felicia's Journey. The cinematography is excellent, with many memorable frames. One that particularly sticks in my mind is a shot of a nuclear power plant, brilliantly photographed, that captures the emptiness of the landscape, as well as being a harbinger and symbol of the roiling emotions that lay beneath the surface of the main character's (Hilditch's)calm exterior. There are many such nuances in the film. Egoyan is clearly a director with a sure hand. We know from the outset of the film that there is something not quite right about Hilditch (Bob Hoskins). What makes the character interesting and keeps us in suspense for a time, is that the character can go either way. Early on, it looks as if he may just be a mild mannered eccentric who has a compulsion about the proper preperation of food. We see him comically standing at the prep table in his elaborate home kitchen, carefully mimicing the step by step instructions of a rather ditzy French Lady Chef on a small screen TV. The same is true of Felicia (Elaine Cassidy), who arrives at the customs desk in England, having come over by ferry from N Ireland. She is the ultimate rube, not even realizing that Northern Ireland is part of the UK, when the customs officer explains that that is why she doesn't need a passport. We are set up to expect very little out of naive, lost-girl Felicia. The first indicator that something is not right with Hilditch is conveyed very subtly. Directly after the characters first meet and Hilditch has directed Felicia to a factory where she might possibly locate her boyfriend (the object of her visit), the camera shows Hilditch stopping his car and checking Felicia out in his rear view mirror for a fleeting moment. We know from that moment that there are ominous things on the horizon. We just don't know how onminous or how severe. As the plot and the characters develop, we gradually come to learn the sordid truth. Excellent preformances from the leads and several supporting characters (particularly from Egoyan's wife, Arsinée Khanjian). The Lost Girl scenes (as viewed from a secret video camera planted on the dashboard of Hilditch's car) were fairly effective in the final edit. Yet the extended scenes in the DVD extras showed just how painfully amateurish these young actresses actually were. First year drama class material. The East Indies Bible lady was also playing to stereotype and her expressions consisted more of mugging than acting. In the final analysis, the film was satisfying enough to make me want to seek out more Egoyan films. I think The Sweet Hereafter will be next on my list. BEK
Rating: 
Summary: A great film!
Review: This film was beautifully made, and the music is beautiful, too. Director Atom Egoyan's twist of the TV chef mother really adds some cinematic taste to the movie, though it does seem to confuse the story and the formation of Hilditch's personality. The ending is good. Personally, I think it is better than in the book. Bob Hoskins' performance is superb! This movie is a must-see only for his performance. I wonder why he was not even nominated for the Oscar. This reminds me of another mystery in 1987 when Hoskins swept almost every award with his performance in Neil Jordan's "Mona Lisa", then lost in the Oscar to Paul Newman's "The Color of Money"? Elaine Cassidy (Felicia) is a novice in film making, but surely not a novice in acting. She is great in the movie, too.
Rating: 
Summary: IS ALL OF THIS TAMPERING REALLY NECESSARY...?
Review: To start with, I have to say that if you haven't seen this film, PLEASE read William Trevor's novel first. You must experience Trevor's luminous writing before enduring what Atom Egoyan has done to it. That being said, there are a lot of good things about this film. The cast is superb -- Elaine Cassidy is perfect as Felicia, and a better choice than Bob Hoskins as Mr. Hilditch I can't imagine. Both of them turn in memorable performances here. The thing that makes it impossible for me to give this film a higher recommendation is Egoyan's inexplicable urge to add elements to Trevor's story. Without writing a 'spoiler' review, I'll just mention that the entire 'videotape' take on Hilditch's 'memory lane', as well as the cooking videos he watches are products of Egoyan's imagination -- they were not present in the novel, and it certainly didn't lack for their non-existence. It annoys me that Egoyan couldn't leave well enough alone -- and it makes me wonder if he succumbs to this temptation with every film he's done. I'm about to read Russell Banks' novel 'The sweet hereafter' to find out...
Rating: 
Summary: People disappoint us sometimes. So does this film.
Review: Was there a point to the deliberate slowness and cliché simplicity of this movie? Perhaps that if you could really look deep into the soul of another person, you wouldn't learn much about why they are the way they are? (Not much good, anyway...) That's how I feel after watching "Felicia's Journey" - let down, frustrated, and maybe even a little manipulated. But hey, goes the old bromide, that's life! So perhaps we can credit Atom Egoyan with a certain understanding of the human condition. But is that worth making (or seeing) a movie about? You might as well blow two hours at the corner bar. I saw Hoskins' character coming a mile away - buttoned-up, super-methodical, funereal in speech and manner even when trying to be comforting to Cassidy's waif, his every word and act a ritual we've seen before. (Oh, and don't forget the mama complex! Lesson to Gen X+1: Move out by age 21 or you, too, may become a murderer.) As for Cassidy, she was at least a pleasure to watch, but she, too, had no uniqueness about her character. Worse still, her motivations (if she even had any) remained a mystery, and not a very interesting one. Except for her delicate Irish beauty, she might as well have been the dressed turkey on Hoskins' kitchen counter.
Rating:
Summary: A disappointing film journey
Review: Whatever happened to Egoyan's intensity? I was crazy about The Adjuster, and told everyone in my world about it . Exotica was a great story. Then, "Hereafter" left me puzzled. Now, I won't even recommend Felicia's Journey to anyone. Read the other reviews that perfectly describe the faults of this film. I can't write anything else about how bummed I was about viewing this film. I'm an Egoyan fan bordering on ignoring the rest of his projects.
Rating:
Summary: Subtle portrait of a killer and a girl
Review: Where Silence of the Lambs might bang you over the head with its portrayal of a madman, Felicia's Journey is far more quiet but just as deft. Elaine Cassidy is very sharp and sincere as Felicia, and it is her preformance that holds the film together. Hoskin's, on the other hand, handles his character with less ease. He seems a little uneasy with Hilditch, the mother obsessed killer, and in his interview included on the disk, he re-affirms my feeling that he found Hilditch "creepy". So, his portrayal comes off all creepy and less human. Atom Egoyan is a film maker i never really liked in his early work, witch had too much of a art house stink to them for my taste, but with his recent outings (far more conventional ones) The Sweet Hereafeter and Journey, he has vastly impressed as a fine cinematic storyteller, who never forces the subject upon the viewer. He just presents a good story, in a simple manner, for all those willing to listen and watch. The DVD is of good quality. Looks great. The extras are fine but negligible. All of the cast interviews are already in the short featurette, save a few brief comments. It would have been better just to make the featurette longer and include the interviews in whole. Hilditch's video collection just offers basically what we see in the movie, only with very annoying black fades breaking up the conversation. A video fast forward or tape break would have looked better than the fades. Journey by no means breaks new ground in storytelling or subject matter, but it succeeds as a fine tale of a innocent young girl and a deadly man, who both are confused with how to function in this world.
Rating:
Summary: Mr Hilditch's Home for Wayward Girls
Review: William Trevor is a wonderful writer; but I am now convinced that Atom Egoyan is an even greater filmmaker. When one compares the novel with the film, it is Trevor who suffers. Felicia is knocked up by a visiting Irish lad who lives around Birmingham. Without letting her family know that she has gone far beyond their interdictions of her relationship, she gathers up some money and jumps the ferry to England. Did I forget to tell you that he never bothered to give her his address? All she knows is that he works in the manufacture of power lawnmowers. Mr Hilditch, son of a deceased French female TV chef, has built his life on cooking his mother's recipes for himself and for the factory workers for whom he runs an inhouse cafeteria. He is fascinated by Felicia (as he was with other "wayward" girls in the past) and seems to stalk her with good advice and officious, somewhat suspect, help as she fails to find her beau. What prevents Mr Hilditch from drugging and killing the helpless Felicia, who has just had an abortion at his behest, is a sudden and unexpected confrontation with a West Indian woman street preacher who quite suddenly makes Mr Hilditch confront himself for the first time. His pattern of unexamined repetitive behavior is suddenly shattered. In the confusion, Felicia escapes; and the poor gourmet/killer has no recourse but to put an end to all his compulsions in the most decisive way possible. Given the subject matter, why are the scenes in Ireland suffused with a haunting Celtic sympathetic sadness? And why is Hilditch in love with his dead mother, and why does he spend all his time watching her videos and following her movement for movement as she concocts fabulous French dishes, which he eats alone? This is all Egoyan, not Trevor. With Egoyan, you read between the lines. The plot is there, but mind and spirit are always taking up new and strange forms. What a marvellous ride!
Rating:
Summary: Heart of Darkness
Review: William Trevor, whose novel Egoyan's film is based on, apparently petitioned the director not to shift the film to Canada; instead he insisted that Egoyan base the film in the same place as the novel, in England's second city, Birmingham (pronounced, by the way, as bir-ming-um, not 'birming ham' - it's a city, not a sandwich filling).
The decision is an apt one, and I would think so even if I didn't live there: the 'satanic north' of coal power stations and chimneys adds to the clammy, claustrophobic feel the film develops.
The plot is summarised by other reviewers, in varying degrees, though to read some, I wondered if they'd seen the same film. Felicia's Journey is one of the most innovative thrillers of recent years, boasts some fine performances and has a level of humanity Egoyan's earlier films lack.
Elaine Cassidy is excellent as the shy, waif-like Felicia, searching for her errant lover. Bob Hoskins's character steals the show, however, as villains tend to do.
Hoskins has described his character, Joseph Hilditch, as part Winnie the Pooh, and part Jack the Ripper. Watching him I feel refreshed: he's as far from the stock English Villain as it's possible to imagine. His nearest predecessor in cinema is a certain character made famous by Anthony Perkins. Watching Hilditch, I think of the villans we meet in everyday life: the paedophile priest, the corrupt cop or right-wing politican, rather than the trashy types served so beloved by Hollywood. True, Hoskins (a cockney) doesn't capture the Birmingham accent well, but I give him an A plus for effort, nonetheless.
Some might find Hilditch's accent hard to grasp, but if you're put off by something as deeply trivial as this, please leave now (Heaven forbid that anyone complain about not understanding a US accent).
The film is a nail-biting game of cat and mouse, as Felicia accepts the affable Hilditch's hospitality, unaware of what horrible forms his need for company has taken.
Will she escape or not? How 'evil' is Hilditch, and are monsters made rather than born?
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