Description
The film tie-in edition of the international bestseller, including new interviews with Rachel Joyce and the production team. Now a major film written by Rachel Joyce, award-winning author of the internationally bestselling book. Directed by Hettie Macdonald (Normal People). Starring Oscar-winner Jim Broadbent with Penelope Wilton.
Harold is an ordinary man who has passed through life, living on the side lines, until he goes to post a letter one day… and just keeps walking.
‘The odyssey of a simple man, original, subtle and touching.’ – Claire Tomalin
‘From the moment I met Harold Fry, I didn’t want to leave him. Impossible to put down.’ – Erica Wagner, The Times
Harold Fry (Academy Award® Winner Jim Broadbent) was never meant to be a hero. He’s an unremarkable man who has made mistakes with all the important things: being a husband, a father and a friend. And now, well into his 60s, he is content to fade quietly into the background of life.
Until, one day – Harold learns his old friend Queenie is dying. Harold leaves home, walking to his post office to send her a letter. And out of the blue, Harold decides to keep walking, all the way to her hospice, 450 miles away.
Surprising himself as much as his gobsmacked wife Maureen (Penelope Wilton), Harold embarks on a walk of hope as he sheds more and more of his old listless self. He notices, perhaps for the very first time, the wonders of nature, and begins to see people very differently, to understand that pain is what we all have in common and that kindness is less rare than you think.
Perhaps this is a coming-of-age story, as Harold and Maureen rediscover themselves and fall in love again. And it is certainly a love story. Not a romance, but a universal story about love. The love of partnership, children, and of parents. The love of neighbours, of friends who have made their own sacrifices, of strangers with hearts alive and loves of their own.
It is also about love for nature, of the plants that nourish us, wild and domesticated; beautiful sunrises and sunsets, springs that refresh us and the myriad shades of green that enrich us.
Above all, it is about not forgetting to love oneself.
