Felicia's Journey

After watching The Sweet Hereafter, Atom Egoyan quickly became one of my favorite modern directors. With this film he creates what could more or less be described as a serial killer movie... maybe. It's not as simple as that, however. There's not really a villain, just a victim. The film focuses on two characters -- Felicia, a young Irish girl has just arrived in England searching for her boyfriend because she is pregnant; and then there is Hilditch (with a good performance by Bob Hoskins), who is a caterer by day and a lonely, trapped-in-the-past, Norman Bates-like, mother-obsessed, potential serial killer by night, but like I said, it's not as simple as that. Their paths cross and Hilditch offers to help Felicia find her boyfriend. The strength of the film lies in its unconvential lack of judgement for the characters. However, I feel there is jarring disconnect between the two story lines. I felt cheated when the story of the girl searching for her boyfriend gradually turned into her finding herself in a potentially dangerous situation. It felt unnatural and I was left disappointed that that part of the film never found a satisfactory resolution.