Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #265665 in DVD
• Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English, French
• Subtitled in: French
• Running time: 116 minutes

Amazon.com
Like Hitchcock, Atom Egoyan envisions family life as a potential hotbed of literal or figurative violence and incest. In Felicia's Journey, Egoyan's adaptation of William Trevor's shattering novel, one dreads to imagine what TV-cook mom (Arsinée Khanjian) did to so damage her pudgy son that grown- up Hilditch (Bob Hoskins) still prepares meals in perfect unison with faded videotapes of her show--and, as we eventually discover, often takes more sinister trips down Memory Lane. Distant kin to Psycho's Tony Perkins, Hoskins's troll is so obsessive, so traumatized, his every short-armed, fat-handed gesture and sing-song utterance is precisely calculated to keep reality safely buried.

Egoyan's movies often seem located underwater, in some surreal dreamscape where one's breath is perpetually suspended while a slow horror seeps ever deeper under the skin. Helpless, transfixed, one watches as his characters drive inexorably toward mined intersections where lives and souls may be lost or redeemed. When Hilditch's path crosses, diverges from, and finally coincides with that of young, pregnant Felicia (Elaine Cassidy)--an Irish innocent searching for her errant boyfriend--it leads to terrible epiphany for these fellow travelers. Trouble is, creepy Hilditch and too-naive Felicia come up a bit short in the psychological complexity department, so by film's end, revelatory payoffs are mostly penny ante. Felica's Journey tours familiar Egoyan territory--an industrialized wasteland full of hungry hearts--but this latest fairy tale (think perverse variations on Hansel and Gretel) isn't in the same league with such "family values" masterpieces as Exotica or The Sweet Hereafter. --Kathleen Murphy

Customer Reviews

for movie sophisticates only
I really think this is one of the best movies to come along in years. It is mysterious, creepy, and alarming but somehow it is also funny, endearing, and charming. How did the director combine so many different moods in one movie? This movie is a character development and mood type movie, not a plot type, so don't expect your typical American blood and guts killer type movie! Many people will not like this movie because they are so conditioned to nonstop action. This movie gives you time to reflect and enjoy the intriguing vivuals and eerie sound track. I loved it!

A not so sweet hereafter
Atom Egoyan followed up his masterpiece film "The Sweet Hereafter," with this strange movie about an unusual serial killer. Bob Hoskins gives a great performance as the man whose hobbies are gormet cooking and killing young girls. But he doesn't murder them outright, as young Felica discovers. She's come to his town seeking out the boyfriend who left her. With nowehere to go, she seemingly lucks out when Hoskins offers to allow her to stay at his large house. All of this sounds more intriguing than it ends up being on the screen. Though well acted, the movie moves slowly and ultimately just doesn't amount to all that much. Egoyan's movies are always literate, but this one is so to the point that you start to lose interest. There are no great moving moments like in "The Sweet Hereafter."

A great film!
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.