In 'Felicia’s Journey', the story is simple. Felicia (Cassidy) has come to England in
search of Johnny, her boyfriend who has impregnated her and then run off to join the
English army. When she arrives, following Johnny’s lie about working in a tractor
factory, she meets up with a kindly English gentleman named Hilditch (Hoskins), who
gives her directions. He’s a cook and a very good one. He ought to be. His mother Gala
(Khanjian) was a television cook. One of those really phony people with the thick french
accent. He’s got so much unresolved anger towards his mother, he makes Norman Bates
look like a healthy, well-adjusted son. What ensues is a game of healing, of obsession
and most of all, a journey, played with a Hitchcockian verve that makes for a numbing
and eerie experience.

 The film has a timeless quality to it. There’s a fifties texture to the look of it -
everything streaked with big broad strokes of color, lifestyles fixed and courteous. The
movie, however, takes place in present day. As in all of Egoyan’s films, there is an
element of technology (usually by way of a video camera inserted into the plot) that is
unmistakeably here and now. The collision of this fifties feel existing in the nineties,
particularly emphasized in Hilditch’s world, says a whole lot about Hilditch’s stand-still
psychosis. He is a child who never came to terms with his feelings regarding his mother
and is, according to Freud, doomed to spend the rest of his life in the phallic stage (ages
4-6), taking his unresolved oedipal complex and crashing it into every aspect of his life.
The film darkens as we realize that he is a serial killer, burying his victims as calmly in
the backyard garden as if he were either of the old women in 'Arsenic and Old Lace'.

 The film is so well-structured and so nearly sympathetic towards Hilditch, it
nearly talks us into believing that he will stop himself and spare Felicia. Particularly
disturbing are the exchanges between the two characters over the dinner table where she
pours her heart out, he lies about a sick wife in the hospital and convinces Felicia into a
rather large decision. Why is this scene so disquieting? Every word is carefully chosen,
like Shakespeare. Every word counts and every word means something. Hilditch’s words
are cold and calculating. Felicia is like a lost little girl, asking if he’s seen her mother, in
so many words.

 Returning to my Hitchcock comment, Hilditch reminded me of any of
Hitchcock’s quiet killers, particularly Joseph Cotton in 'Shadow of a Doubt'. It’s the kind
of character that has so many layers and such depth, you could soak him up with a sponge
and still be figuring out the manner of his psyche. For a character that rich and that
important, we must seek out an actor with a strong, confidant voice and a striking look to
him. Bob Hoskins. Bingo.

 Hoskins is so good at playing this sad fellow that we all see right through, but
who still retains the overbearing note of hospitality and that long Cockney drawl in an
effort to mask his disarray. His past is so curiously ambigious, leading Hoskins to wield
this bizarre nature and whip it around like it were to apologize for the life he’s lead. We
want to believe him, we really do. The name of Egoyan’s game seems like sympathy. But
not quite. In this film, there is a subtext that lies just beneath Hoskins’ problems that we
can’t see, but are nearly positive isn’t the entire reason he is what he is. Secretly, my pity
turned putrid black and I began to hate this character. The film keeps us in tune enough
with him to realize that even a man too close to mother cannot be pardoned from, as he
puts it, “m-oigh-dugh” (“murder”, an oh, that voice is just absolutely perfect).

 Cassidy is magnificent. She plays Felicia as similar to Hilditch as she can : a
naive creature, fleeting, childlike and scarred by her world. She is aimless, like he - but
with a clear goal - also, like he. Cassidy has such a unique and gracious quality to her.
We can’t help but look at her and feel raw, unadulterated compassion. She is beautiful
and, at the same time, she has that look that craves the phrase “somebody’s daughter” :
that innocent, untouched look that shouldn’t be associated with a teen pregnancy, but
inevitably is. She shares the screen with a potential scenery chewer and holds her own
and once more, carries a presence that splits the screen right down the middle,
comfortably giving each actor their share.

 What a great use of cinematography. The composition constantly suggests a vast
world emphasizing the word that best ties all the themes in a bundle : journey. The colors
are, as I said, suggestive of another time, and they sparkle in the crumbled religious
history (fallen churches) of Ireland and the wood-finish shadows of Hilditch’s mansion.
The music works its magic in this brew as well, melding a heavy-handed string suspense
score with Irish lullabies and finally, the most haunting of all, the fifties crooners
bringing back the nostalgic element to Hilditch’s little trips into his memory.

 Never ceasing to amaze me, Egoyan has created a modern meticulous
masterpiece, worthy to stand next to 'The Sweet Hereafter'. Everything in the script is
sculpted together in such a fashion that, surrounding the characters (their thoughts, their
worlds and their souls) there is a canvas of transcendence, regret and hope shining with
beauty. It’s always a wonder to behold films of enormous power and profundity,
especially when you realize their value right away. Egoyan casted his wife, Arsinee
Khanjian in 'Felicia’s Journey' as Gala, Hilditch’s mother in his flashbacks and on
pre-recorded episodes of the cooking shows. She is magnificent.  The fact that he gets
away with casting her in every last one of his films and that she is as good as she is every
time without fail makes me realize that he is no longer flirting with brilliance and riding
out possibilities and experiments (like casting his wife out of desperation or, more
foolishly, for her) - he’s full-on controlling the interworkings of perfection. He has the
judgement of a mountain goat. He wants us to know that he’s got it and that he’s going to
keep doing it. He’s the Bergman of his generation of filmmakers.