A married couple go on a long trek, after losing their home and discovering that one of them has a terminal illness that can’t be cured.
THE SALT PATH. Starring Jason Isaacs, Gillian Anderson, James Lance, and Lloyd Hutchinson. Directed by Marianne Elliott. Rated M (Mature themes and coarse language).115 min.
Review by Peter W Sheehan, Jesuit Media Australia
This British film is a movie version of a 2018 book written by Raynor Winn. The movie tells the story of a married couple who receive a bad health diagnosis and become homeless due to circumstances they can’t control.
In trying to face their stress, both decide impulsively to walk the longest uninterrupted path in South West England: from Minehead to Poole along the Devin, Cornwall and Dorset Coast. Raynor Winn, the book’s author, was also diagnosed with a life-threatening disease and he underwent a 639 mile walk along the South West Coast Path in England with his wife. Both book and film depict the human capacity to endure. In the film, Jason Isaacs plays the husband (Moth), and Gillian Anderson plays his wife (Ray). Moth was a victim of a rare CBD disease which is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that attacks the basal ganglia and cerebral cortex.
Gillian Anderson gives a multi-layered, performance as Raynor Winn, and Jason Isaacs captures his affliction as her husband, Moth. Both deliver an unstated account of their predicament in a film that has excellent cinematography of the English countryside and sea scapes. Moth and Ray hang onto their sanity by a thread and jointly they decide to face a walk that highlights the indignities of age, unpreparedness, and homelessness. Their journey is dangerous, and challenging. However, their love for each other is inspiring, and the film captures their mutual love and commitment well.
The long journey stretches to a conclusion that the credits resolve, and the drama of a homeless couple facing a medical disaster is given less treatment than the challenges facing the couple in hazardous adventure-walking. Marianne Elliott, as Director, is well aware of the background to the story’s drama and the film concludes anti-climatically via its credits which bring its run-time to an end. The storyline stays a little disconnected from the tragedy that lies behind the couple’s impulsive decision-making to attempt an almost impossible walk.
This is a film that is cinematically worthy. The film’s structure pushes the viewer to look simultaneously both at “survival” as well as the “triumph” of what a loving couple hope to achieve. The film lingers in memory as a an impressive “nature” film with excellent cinematography, that is movingly inspirational in tone.
Peter W Sheehan is an Associate of Jesuit Media