The unlikely pilgrimage7/4/2023 ![]() As Harold says to himself while gazing alone at a beautiful sun-dappled view, ‘Who knew?’ Now and then on Harold’s journey, there are hints of something almost mythic and mystical about the landscape. ![]() ![]() British cinema may not be able to match the widescreen vistas offered by American movies, but Macdonald and cinematographer Kate McCullough shows that the English countryside can be no less striking. Along the way, its makers also disprove the notion that you can’t make a road movie on what DH Lawrence called "an island no bigger than a back garden". The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry shows that a film about someone walking doesn’t have to be pedestrian. Harold’s dogged resilience is the dramatic engine that drives the film, but Broadbent also conveys the less attractive sides of Harold’s character and history, while Wilton introduces notes of anger, bitterness and frustration to balance the film’s overall mood of uplift, with timely flashbacks slowly revealing that the couple’s highly strung son has been the cause of their estrangement. The filmmakers stumble a little when they attempt to satirize the temporary companions Harold picks up en route, and there are also times when they threaten to veer off into sentimentality, but the story has a darker edge that stops things becoming overly twee. ![]()
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