A new film shot around Northumberland and starring Academy Award winner Jim Broadbent is set for its big screen release later this week, with The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry set to earn widespread praise from fans and critics alike.
.The film, based on the book of the same name by award winning author Rachel Joyce,, tells the story of a man, played by acting legend Jim, an Oscar winner in 2001 for Iris, who leaves his seaside town in South Devon to deliver a message to an old friend.
The synopsis for the movie, which sees Penelope Wilton play Jim's on-screen wife, adds: 'Harold Fry was never meant to be a hero. He’s an unremarkable man who has failed at all the important things: being a husband, a father and a friend. Now, well into his 60s, he is content to fade quietly into the background of life. But when Harold learns his friend Queenie is dying, he is moved to act. He leaves home, walking to the post box to send her a letter, until he realises a letter is not enough.
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It continues; "In that moment Harold decides to keep walking, all the way to her hospice, some 500 miles away in Berwick-upon-Tweed: as long as he walks, Queenie must live. Surprising himself as much as his wife Maureen, Harold embarks on a walk of hope, determined to travel the length of England to save his friend.'
Berwick, the most northern town in England, sitting right on the border with Scotland, was one of a number of locations used for the film, with other ones to look out for including Stannington, Mitford and Adderstone Services, on the easy up to Beerwick in the Warenford area of Northumberland.
The novel of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, won the UK National Book Award for the New Writer of the Year and was the UK’s bestselling book from a new novelist in 2021, going onto sell six million copies worldwide.
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