SOURCE: “Felicia's Journey: Soup to Nut,” in Washington Post, November 19, 1999, p. C05.

In the following review, Hunter focuses on Egoyan's treatment of the serial killer Mr. Hilditch in Felicia's Journey.

Felicia's Journey offers something new, at least: the figure of the sociopathic killer as lovelorn lonely guy who only needs a nice hug to set him free.

This creepy but compelling image is at the center of the film that director Atom Egoyan chose to make after the sublime The Sweet Hereafter. Like Hereafter, it is derived from a distinguished text, a prize-winning novel by the highly regarded Irish novelist William Trevor. Its pedigree—including the Whitbread Prize—is unassailably literary, and what distinguishes this serial killer story from many other serial killer stories is what separates serious fiction from pulp fiction: the question of motive. Trevor, unlike, say, Thomas Harris, is at pains to discover what turns...