The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce

The film is also well made and full of good performances and doesn't feel overlong. Both Broadbent and Wilton produce powerful performances and as the film progresses their characters personalities start to make sense. The story might be slight but I found it nonetheless compelling. And as Harold makes his journey we start to learn that his life and relationship with Maureen is not as boring as it seems, for beneath the surface he is masking a terrible tragedy and a fractured relationship. On the journey he meets an assortment of characters, from a well meaning and helpful Slovakian woman, a woman on a farm, a stranger at a railway station, a pill popping confused 18 year old, a stray dog and a small following of people who want to join his pilgrimage.

As Harold makes his way up north his 'Pilgrimage' starts to become public knowledge and he soon attracts a following on both social media and then the headline news. However feeling it is not enough, he cannot bring himself to post it and, after talking to a shopgirl in a petrol station, decides on the spot to walk to see her, leaving his wife Maureen (Penelope Wilton) sick with worry and frantic about being on her own. When retired Brewery manager Harold (Jim Broadbent) receives a letter from an old work colleague that she is dying in a hospice at the the other end of the country in Berwick-upon-Tweed, he writes a letter.

The story of Harold Fry's 500 mile walk from Devon to the English border with Scotland is well translated to the big screen by director Hettie MacDonald in this low key but very watchable film.

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce