The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

In cinemas now

Hettie Macdonald’s big-screen adaptation of Rachel Joyce’s novel is a more complex affair than its promotional material would have you believe. On face value, The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry looks like the sort of polite, crowd-pleasing fare that British cinema has an occasional penchant for being.

It’s therefore a pleasant surprise to discover that Macdonald’s film (and indeed Joyce’s source material) is actually a layered musing on grief, with the pilgrimage of the titular protagonist proving to be a means of moving past an inescapable sorrow that only the passing of a loved one can inflict.

Jim Broadbent, who also voiced the novel’s audiobook, is fantastic in the lead role (as he was in last year’s The Duke), bringing an understated sadness to the character of Harold Fry that is both familiar and authentic. Penelope Wilton is also in stellar form as Fry’s jilted wife who, like her husband, appears frozen in time due to the unspeakable tragedy that has befallen her marriage.

There are aspects of this film that didn’t entirely work for me (it’s unafraid to indulge in many of the tropes of ‘feelgood’ cinema), but it is on the whole a modest and quietly affecting film that does its central topic justice aplenty.