The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry [2023]

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It's extremely depressing, I expected more laughs but got only a few "humph" moments of comedy that didn't warrant a real laugh. When Harold learns that an old friend is dying, he takes a pilgrimage to give her hope and save her. David steals and declaims her love poems written for/about Harold, steals money from Queenie, fails at Cambridge.

Retired pensioner Harold Fry lives in Kingsbridge with his wife Maureen, whose marriage to him has become despondent and quiet. drugs Scenes feature brief drug misuse and references to taking pills, although drug misuse and addiction are presented in a highly aversive manner. At one stage he becomes a kind of Messiah figure, leading a flock of followers, but he arrives in Berwick on his own to resolve the issue of the dying woman's role in his life.

Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian was more critical of the suspension of reality required with the plot, saying that whilst it was “impeccably acted, sincerely intended and often beautifully shot” there was something “unsatisfying” in the “solemn, self-conscious fantasy”. It's a beautiful story of a simple act that one man made to try to bring some meaning and importance to a life that was just originate but full of regret. She dedicated the play to her father, who was dying from cancer, and who did not live long enough to hear it. Harold is an ordinary man who has passed through life, living on the side lines, until he goes to post a letter one day. 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.

Mild-mannered pensioner Harold Fry (Jim Broadbent) takes a stroll to the postbox one bright Devon morning. A very good way to spend a few hours, especially if you have someone in your life who is struggling with an illness.Recently retired, Harold Fry is well into his 60s and content to fade quietly into the background of life. Maureen reaches him in Berwick, and he tells her that Queenie is beyond hope, beyond speech, and had been so since he set out. The film sees Harold Fry, an ordinary man who has passed through life, living on the side lines, until he goes to post a letter one day. I thought the movie became over sentimental and frankly a bit silly when Harold becomes an unwilling media celebrity and begins to attract groupies to join him including a very troubled young man and a little dog that looks as old as Harold. This politely unassuming little film builds into a wrenching examination of grief, guilt and eventual closure.