Rachel Joyce did write the best-selling novel in 2012, but the very thematically similar The Last Bus pipped the film adaptation of this one to the screen. Both revolve wholly around an elderly man going on a solo quest across the country to fulfil a promise and gain redemption. Both tragically lost a son years before and cannot totally avoid people on their way, their journeys going viral and then becoming no longer quite their own, with multitudes giving them assistance towards their respective goals. The two men are even played by go-to national treasures for hangdog, downtrodden elderly men roles, here Jim Broadbent as opposed Timpothy Spall in the other film. The only significant differences are that Spall's character was carrying his wife's ashes, whereas the titular Fry's wife is very much alive and well and frustrated at her husband's loopy conviction that his trek will somehow cure the cancer of a dying former colleague at the end of the voyage, and that Fry's route is far more scenic, with secluded country lanes and small historic towns.
Unsurprisingly, it falls prey to sentimentality and could have done without all the flashbacks to past events to gradually explain the reaons for Fry's sense of guilt, which really break the atmosphere and flow of the story. Broadbent and Penelope Wilton as the Frys do their best, as usual, to compensate for these shortcomings.
6/10
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