One of our French reporters sent FATHER GEEK the following this morning, a review of the French Premiere of Atom Egoyan's FELICIA'S JOURNEY in beautiful Blois. Check it out...

Hello everybody!

I didn't get a chance to go to the Festival of Cannes this year, so I missed a few good movies who are hitting the theaters right now to fight against "Stars Wars" (it has just come out NOW in FRANCE - and you know why? 'cause G. Lucas made a deal with the French "Win-a-price"-Toto-Lotto-Games; so they had to produce some "Star Wars I cards" you rub to see if you have won any money. Of course, Lucas and the French government are the only ones to make some money out of it). Kitano, Lynch, Jarmusch (marvellous "Ghost Dog"), only nice movies right now around here.

Well, I always liked Atom Egoyan, from his first pics - "Family viewing", "The Adjuster", "Kalendar" - until his recent Russel Banks - adaption. Well, I got a little scared by that one, cause of its conventions and classic structures, by the huge camera-moves and the famous actors in it. That's not MY Atom Egoyan, who I like him... At least the plot was cool and I could find some of Egoyan's favorite subjects (the secret, the family, etc). How happy was I to get a free pass to a big premiere of his latest flick in Blois/France, especially because the movie isn't due to come out before january 2000 in France.

The theater was full, especially elderly people. A little speech by the owner and the distributors and the light went out. Here we went for "Felicia's trip".

Well, I loved the beginning : Bob Hopkins IS just a great actor and his play in this movie is very well...well , at the beginning. He plays a nice boss of a huge society in England, more preoccupied to supervise the good efforts of the society's kitchen than to take care of the serious stuff. It's a nice, elderly fellow, calm and smily. The first signs of some troubles are shown back at his place, when he prepares dinner. That sequence is just the best part of the movie : Hopkins in front of an old TV in his HUGE kitchen watching an old cooking-TV-show hosted by Egoyan's wife, who is just hilarious with her french accent. I won't give away too much for all the people who won't listen to me and just suffer this movie until it's ridiculous end.

Next we discover Felicia, an Irish girl coming over to England to search her boyfriend. Yeah, well, that stupid girl doesn't even think a minute to have a look in the yellow pages to find out the name of the society where her friend is supposed to be employed. Instead she's walking around for hours in a huge industrial zone and ask around for that stupid society. She meets Hopkins, who will take care of her.

Of course, Hopkins isn't what he seems to be and we learn everything about his traumatism and troubles by some flash-backs of his childhood. Same for Felicia, which keeps more than one secret. The problem of this movie is that it's very long and it repeats itself. I won't charge any American movies, but Egoyan seems to head towards Hollywood by his "fast-food"-structure meaning telling over and over again what happened and explaining the most little and insignificant detail the average audience has guessed hours ago.

The plot has some "déjà vu" effects, is loaded with cliches and is highly unlikely. (Hoskins digging a grave and finding a wallet he put there 40 years earlier just to remember him what a bad boy he is...).

The major problem is that Egoyan gives away the "whodunnit" too early, so the audience guesses already the plot from the beginning until the end. That's why the first 20 minutes are so good : cause we know something is not right, but we can't guess what. It has been a strength in Egoyan's other movies to find out the secrets of the characters near the end of the movie and now that he tells us from the beginning on what is wrong, we get bored by a pretty light plot. This movie remebers me a bad Hitchcock flick, not only by the application of the "whodunnit", but also because of a hell of ressemblances with "Psycho" - but we are very far away from the quality and suspense of tht movie. I reproach Egoyan as well to try to put some of the "English/Irish"- conflict in it; it is very far away from his native Canada and you can see it on screen (especially if you have seen some Jim Sheridan stuff, which represents much better that conflict).

NO, there is nothing to save from that movie; it really stinks. Egoyan puts some of his characteristic recipes in it (secret, parody of the 50's, video,...), but this time it doesn't "support" the plot. There are just a bonus, seeming to remember the times far away, when he used to do movies with little money, but great ideas, wasn't paid by the festival of Cannes to finish his movie on time for the official presentation and when he didn't had secretly an eye on the North-American market.

Xcuse for the grammatical errors of this text,

B.HAPPY

Gildas