Having a word like “pilgrimage” in the title of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry (2023) excites a Catholic film reviewer.  Pilgrimages are a foundational aspect of the Church, something it has been doing since the beginning.  A further argument can be made that this is something mentioned in the Bible.  In the Old Testament, Israelites were required to come to Jerusalem a few times a year for different festivals.  As a child, Jesus did this with Joseph and Mary.  In those days, following these principles were more of a religious mandate.  During the Christian era, the act became less about adhering to a rule and more about seeking some kind of spiritual experience that allowed one to get closer to God.  Over the centuries, these have often sprung up in places where Mary, the Mother of God, has appeared to a group of people.  These apparitions have included all manner of miracles, including prophecies and healings.  I have been to a few of these places, though not after having walked to them.  Why did I make that last specification?  Because that is what the title character (Jim Broadbent) does in today’s movie, The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, though not to a Marian site.  It even talks a little about Christianity.

There is little talking going on at the beginning of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry.  Harold and his wife, Maureen Fry (Penelope Wilton), are having a quiet breakfast when he notices a strange letter from a town on the other side of England called Berwick-upon-Tweed.  Not sure of who they know from there, he opens it to find that it is from Queenie Hennessy (Linda Bassett), an old friend and co-worker.  It is an unexpected missive made even more so by the revelation that Queenie is now in hospice.  Because the movie contains a lot of flashbacks, I am going to fill in the backstory here so that the rest of this make sense in my preferred linear fashion.  It really starts with Harold’s son, David Fry (Earl Cave).  After dropping out of Cambridge University, David comes home and gets into alcohol and drugs.  Harold struggles with how to handle David, which should be read as he fails completely.  Please do not take that as me imputing blame.  It is a situation he is ill-equipped to handle, and the same can be said for Maureen.  David’s behavior becomes increasingly worse until one day, Harold goes to the garage and finds David hanging from a rope, dead.  On the way into the funeral, Harold is unable to muster the courage to go inside.  Maureen is shocked by this cowardice and spends a lot of hours in the aftermath berating her husband for his behavior.  In turn, he takes to the bottle.  In a drunken stupor, he stumbles into the brewery where he is employed and begins destroying some of the product.  It is Queenie who first discovers him.  Instead of turning him in, she takes the blame, enduring being fired (or sacked, as the English would say), and giving Harold the chance to rebuild his life.  In the twenty-five years since that happened, Harold has gone on living, but he is a shell of who he once was.  It is evident that his marriage is loveless.  Thus, after reading the letter, Maureen barely comments when he announces that he is heading out to send a letter of sympathy to Queenie.  He finds that he has trouble posting it, and stalls for time by going into a convenience store and buying some milk.  While checking out, he talks with the clerk (Nina Singh), who relates how faith had kept her aunt alive longer while battling cancer.  The story inspires Harold.  Writing on the back of the envelope of his letter telling her not to die and to wait for him, he decides at that point that he is going to walk the nearly 500 miles to Berwick-upon-Tweed to visit Queenie.  The idea is, of course, mad, and Maureen tells him so when he phones to let her know what he is doing.  She even tries to visit a doctor to convince a medical professional that Harold has Alzheimer’s.  Maureen is not wrong as to the folly of the undertaking, and Harold realizes it before too long.  Indeed, despite some help from strangers along the way, he is about to give up after a little over a week when he calls Queenie’s hospice and is told that his letters and postcards have resulted in a turnaround in her health, relatively speaking.  It renews his commitment, and he ends up sending back to Maureen all his money and everything else that he believes will encumber his journey.  Instead, he lives off the land, and the people he passes begin to notice him.  Before too long, there is a small throng of people following him, the first of these being Wilf (Daniel Frogson).  He is an eighteen-year-old who says that he sees God’s hand at work in Harold.  The older man takes the young adult into his care, partially because Wilf reminds Harold of David.  That comparison becomes all the more real when Harold catches Wilf looking through the former’s backpack, about to steal a crystal intended for Queenie, and having illicit pills.  The next morning, Wilf is gone and one of the others tells Harold that he must carry on alone.  As he gets closer to his destination, the reminisces about David intensify to the point that Harold calls Maureen to quit.  She informs Harold that he is only eighteen miles from his goal, so he continues.  Getting there is an emotional experience for him, and all he can do is think about his son.  All the same, he eventually makes it up to Queenie’s room for a visit.  Upon coming out, he takes some time on a bench overlooking the sea, and this is where Maureen finds him.  There is a shared apology for everything that has happened, and the film ends with them holding hands.

It is good that The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry has such a happy ending.  When it comes to a pilgrimage, almost any ending is a good one.  The destination is the reward.  It takes faith to get there, and this is what inspires Harold to start walking.  We later find out that the store clerk had lied about her aunt, but that information does not matter.  Harold believes he can make a difference, that by trekking on foot across England, he will save Queenie.  There is a theological problem with this thinking.  It is not our actions that effect such miracles, but God’s will.  At the same time, he hears our supplications.  Even though Harold’s act is not intended as a religious one, he repeats several times as he strides that “you will not die.”  God listens to our prayers, but He judges best how they should be used.  As such, the journey is less about Queenie, and more about finding healing for himself and Maureen.  As I discussed in the introduction, this is a reason why people have undertaken similar treks over the centuries.  In previous centuries, the manner of their penitence was a little more extreme.  There were those who walked the entire breadth of Northern Spain on El Camino de Compestela barefoot to atone for their sins.  These days, such actions are seen as not as necessary, but acceptable if done with the proper disposition with God.  It used to be that people did these things to publicly show their remorse.  Today, we better understand that God judges the heart of the person.  Harold has a good heart.  He treats those he meets with kindness, and those sentiments are returned.  Finally, his trip is purgative, not so much in getting rid of his painful memories, but of him letting go of the attachments to the negative aspects of his relationship with David.  Maureen completes the process by giving her husband a Godly embrace and showing him that he is loved.

There is a lot to love about The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry.  He is a likable character, unassuming, but dealing with problems with which many people can relate.  On a more personal note, I appreciated the fact that Queenie’s hospice seems to be run by nuns.  All these factors make a recipe for a good movie.