Movie Number 23 of 2025
The Movie: The Salt Path
The Cinema: Hoyts Victoria Gardens
Runtime: An hour and 45 minutes
Stars: 4
I was drawn to The Salt Path for a couple of reasons. The location, being the Southwest of England, and it's a film about people walking, and of course, the two main players are Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs - two actors I hold in very high esteem.
What I didn't know was that this is based on a true story.
Moss (Isaacs) and Raynor (Anderson) are very down on their luck. A bogus investment has left them bankrupt, their house sold from under them and next to nothing is left in the bank. They're homeless. Making matters worse, Moss has been diagnosed with an awful degenerative illness, which drugs are supposedly keeping at bay. He's been given a few years to live. Moss, however, is mobile, but only just.
With no home, little money and the knowledge they've walked before, the pair take themselves on The Salt Path, a walk around the bottom heel of England, from Somerset, down around Cornwall to Land's End, and up along the coasts of Devon and Dorset. Along the way, they meet a lot of people, wage war with the elements, find some interesting ways to make money and stay very strong in the face of adversity.
This is a slow burn of a film. Beautifully shot in an amazing part of England, meanders between the Winn's walk and the immediate troubles they face, as well as seeing some of the tribulations they faced. Marianne Elliott's direction is assured, but the movie does run a little slow. Rebecca Lenkiewicz's scrips is also fairly bare, at times verging on the banal, bit in all, for a movie about a middle-aged couple walking along a rugged coastline, how interesting is the script going to be.
I'm glad I've seen this, mainly for the setting - and Jason Isaacs and Gillian Anderson are always a treat.
File this one under "Take your Mum".
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