Director: Emilio Estevez
Cast: Martin Sheen, Deborah Kara Unger, James Nesbitt, Yorick van Wageningen, Emilio Estevez Rating: (PG)
3 stars (out of 5)
Estevez originally conceived an idea for a film honouring the "El Camino de Santiago" after his son Taylor took part in the legendary Christian pilgrimage route from the Pyrenees to Galicia in northwest Spain. When a documentary proposal fell over, Estevez wrote a dramatic screenplay about modern-day pilgrims with his father as the lead.
Martin Sheen is Thomas Avery, an American eye specialist whose comfortable country club existence is rocked with the news that his son Daniel (Estevez) passed away while walking the Camino. Travelling to France to collect Daniel, Tom's grief causes him to confront his own life, loss, and Daniel's free-spirited idealism, which irritated him. After scarcely a moment of soul searching, Tom arranges Daniel's cremation, and with his son's pack on his back and a box of ashes tied to the side, he sets off to honour his son by completing the route.
Tom meets up with three travellers who fortunately inject a bit of life into the film.
Put together on a minuscule budget, The Way deserves plaudits for its attention to detail. However, the lack of anything profound in the script and reliance on well-worn road movie tropes leave you wishing that the pilgrims would pick up their speed.
Best thing: The scenery. Estevez really captures the essence of the small settlements along the route.
Worst thing: The predictability.
See it with: An idealistic backpacker.
- By Mark Orton.
