Felicia's Journey (1999)

Best movie of this year hands down!

Simply Perfect

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

I am SO glad I stumbled across "Felicia's Journey', as it is a fantastic diabolical thriller that reminds you of the films from the late-great Alfred Hitchcock!I am intentionally not going into specifics about the rich, incredible story-line of this film. I do not want to alert the viewer to the shocks and gasps that one will unexpectedly encounter throughout the entire course of this movie! Saying it is both phenomenal and brilliant would be a major understatement.Highly, highly recommend! 🎞

I watched this film about 6 years ago when I was Felicia's age, and I have never seen anything so depressing. I felt so down after watching this horrible film and I hated all men. Felicia's journey totally makes you see how scummy some men can be and I'm not talking about the old man that tried to kill her, I mean the lowlife that slept with her, promised to keep in touch then doesn't. If you're going to use and abuse a 17 year old girl at least have the decency not to knock her up in a country where abortion is illegal! Then of course there was the user's horrible mother who was trying to keep Felicia away from him, then there was Felicia's killer friend who sees the user shes looking for but doesn't tell Felicia, at one point they all end up in the same pub together but he says nothing hoping Felicia wont see. It was so depressing. The only decent thing the killer does is get Felicia the abortion. Felicia never does get reunited with the user who knocked her up which makes it even more depressing, even though by the end of the film shes over him.

Atom Egoyan's film, 'Felicia's Journey', is set in the late 1980s; but like so much of writer Willaim Trevor's work, it feels set in an older time. Bob Hoskins' character lives under the shadow of the memory of his monstrous mother, a 1950s TV cook; but the film's other themes also appear dated: an Ireland in the continued grip of Catholic insularity, first generation Jamacian-British immigrants, even Birmigham as a manufacturing centre; all of these seem subjects that belong to another time. And while Egoyan assembles a visually satisfying picture of this world, the soundtrack is sometimes intrusive and the plot is stymied by the fact that Hoskins' character is just too odd to attract the sympathy necessary to balance that which the viewer naturally has for the eponymous Felicia. Overall, it has the feeling of a short story padded out to make a full-length film; although there's a nice atmosphere of Gothic horror in the climax. Still, if you haven't seen it, you'd be better watching 'The Sweet Hereafter', Egoyan's finest film.

I found this an awfully disappointing experience! But I have appended a better option of similar style at the foot of this entry.This "Felicia's Journey" is intriguing. It has drama. But it is full of stereo-types! So it ONLY serves judgemental temperaments without concern for truer justice & fairness & truth, beyond black 'n' white judgements that fit 30-second ads of "NEWS" that dot our multimedia experiences everyday, especially news bulletins, true or misleading in such depictions! It is SO EXAGGERATED, it reminds me of the fairytale of "Little Red Ridinghood"! Consider the innocent young girl with no identification crossing borders questioned by a guard but freed without any evidence to venture on in search of her 'Romeo' who didn't give her an address VERSUS the pathetically inept lack of substance in the raspy voice of the 'helping hand' befriending her with his unlikely story fabricated by the layer! It seems to suit the directors & management team that no-one has faith or prays to God, even in their times of desperation! So in these early settings, it orchestrates & tells much of what is to come! A nightmare journey that betrays the essence of substance without fairytale resolution, without truth or integrity or credibility! ...Then one twist & it's all over. What a disappointment! If you want to see a MUCH superior movie that investigates similar themes with MUCH more credibility, with much more powerful insight, watch the 1983 Paul Cox/Norman Kaye "Man of Flowers" movie!!! Unlike here, you will NOT be disappointed!