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.
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 southwest England: from Minehead to Poole along the Devon, Cornwall and Dorset coast.
Winn, the book’s author, was also diagnosed with a life-threatening disease and he underwent the more 1000km 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, Isaacs plays the husband Moth and 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.
Anderson gives a multi-layered performance, but both she and Isaacs 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 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. Elliott, as director, is 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. Its structure pushes the viewer to look simultaneously at ‘survival’ as well as the ‘triumph’ of what a loving couple hope to achieve. The film lingers in memory as an impressive ‘nature’ film with excellent cinematography, that is movingly inspirational in tone.
Transmission Films
Released 15 May