It’s a deceptively easy premise for a two-hour function movie. A married couple who had deliberate their retirement in a B&B are, as a result of dire monetary circumstances and bum luck, pressured out of their house at a degree that’s, on the floor no less than, utterly devastating. With their youngsters now off in school, they make the choice to pack up what they will of their backpacks and take off on the Salt Path, a 630-mile stretch from Dorset to Somerset on the Southwestern English Coast. To make issues worse, the husband has simply been identified with a terminal neurodegenerative illness, however they’re certain and decided to finish this journey, maybe the final of their lives as a result of they don’t have any different alternative.
Oh, and it’s a 100% true story.
Exquisitely directed by four-time Tony Award winner Marianne Elliott (Warfare Horse, Angels in America, Firm, Dying of a Salesman) with a screenplay by Rebecca Lenkiewicz (She Stated) primarily based on Raynor Winn’s 2018 memoir, The Salt Path is an inspiring story of affection and resilience in a scenario that may in any other case break most individuals, particularly a pair coming into their later years with little hope in opposition to an unforgiving system. That is definitely not the primary movie primarily based on somebody setting out on an bold stroll for varied private causes. Martin Sheen starred as a person tackling El Camino de Santiago path in 2010’s non secular The Method; Reese Witherspoon performed the depressed Cheryl Strayed in Wild, the 2014 true story of her 1100-mile hike on the Pacific Crest Path; and Mark Wahlberg starred in one other true story, 2020’s Joe Bell, a couple of father who walks throughout America in protest of the bullying of his son.
All of those movies, and different related tales of willpower in opposition to all odds, had been admirable makes an attempt however not all the time profitable motion pictures as typically dramatizing the journey is usually a little repetitive. The place Elliott succeeds with a high-quality Lenkiewicz template, is getting us immediately engaged within the travails of Ray (Gillian Anderson) and Moth (Jason Isaacs), a pair who could possibly be you or me as life hits them arduous within the intestine and the Salt Path turns into someway a remedy, a non secular redemption nonetheless non permanent, to set them on a brand new path (actually and figuratively) in life. Is it an journey? Is it madness or an existential mid-life disaster? In some methods, it’s paying homage to the premise of John Cheever’s The Swimmer and its movie adaptation, wherein Burt Lancaster swam from one neighbor’s pool to a different, encountering varied individuals alongside the way in which. However furthermore, it’s the story of those two born to return collectively to expertise life collectively, regardless of how arduous that will get.
After unreasonably being evicted from their B&B, having their checking account dried up as a result of authorized bills and shedding their farm, this likable couple decides to fullfil a dream and reside off the land because it had been by embarking with simply chump change on an bold stroll protecting 630 breathtaking miles, at the same time as Moth has had a fairly devastating prognosis. This may cease most individuals of their tracks, however on this case solely units this couple off in theirs.
The story from this level on turns into episodic as they make their manner, stopping at varied factors and cities, interacting with the locals and kinfolk, bleeding an ATM dry only for sufficient to get meals, and even for Ray getting a job shearing sheep. Nothing vastly life-threatening occurs alongside the way in which, no sudden tidal wave or earthquakes, not one of the ordinary film tropes, however somewhat a love story of two individuals profiting from the place life has introduced them so far. In fact to make this work, you want actors of the extraordinary grace and expertise of Anderson and Isaacs who’re solely plausible as this pair staring down nature as an antidote to the playing cards life has dealt. Each are wonderful in basically a two-hander, though they get help alongside the way in which from varied individuals they meet or stick with.
With Helene Louvart’s wonderful cinematography an actual plus, The Salt Path is a cinematic journey value taking. It had its world premiere Thursday on the Toronto Worldwide Movie Competition. Producers are Elizabeth Karlsen, Stephen Woolley, Lloyd Levin and Beatriz Levin.
Title: The Salt Path
Competition: Toronto
Director: Marianne Elliott
Screenplay: Rebecca Lenkiewicz
Forged: Gillian Anderson, Jason Isaacs, James Lance, Hermione Norris, Megan Placito
Working Time: 1 hour and 55 minutes
Gross sales Agent: Rocket Science, Black Bear
