The Salt Path
After being made homeless, a couple decides to embark on a 630-mile walk to restore their souls.
An Unlikely Pilgrimage: Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs
Image courtesy of Black Bear.
This is the first feature film to be directed by the much-admired stage director Marianne Elliott who, it is said, chose to make The Salt Path because she was looking for a piece which had at its centre a strong older woman. That was an admirable intention, but I feel that in choosing this adaptation of Raynor Winn’s best-selling memoir she has found material far better suited to the printed page. I have not read the book in question but can readily imagine how in telling the story of how she and her husband Moth undertook a long hike on England’s South West Coast Path she would be able to express her thoughts and feelings in a way that would speak easily and directly to readers and enlist their sympathy. Published in 2018, her book told of the nightmare circumstances in which the couple were evicted from their farm after losing a court case and in addition learnt that Moth was suffering from corticobasal degeneration, a neurological disease incurable and quite likely to soon prove fatal. With their children grown up and living their own lives, the now homeless couple sought distraction by setting out from Minehead in Somerset to traverse the route from there to Land’s End thus establishing a contact with nature which might be invigorating.
Coming to this material for the first time by way of this film, I found it to be a work which despite its virtues was inherently problematic. For one thing there is the matter of the structure. The screenplay is by Rebecca Lenkiewicz who previously did a fine job in writing She Said (2022) having earlier contributed to the screenplay of Ida (2013). Here, however, having opted to basically start off with the beginning of the walk she finds herself having to keep interrupting the narrative with brief explanatory flashbacks. The timing of them appears arbitrary and, while the episode of Moth receiving his medical diagnosis is clear enough, other such scenes about a court case being lost and leading to the enforced sale of their home are actually rather confusing (I never did grasp the bit about a betrayal over investments and the notion that a letter if posted in time might have saved the situation).
In part, of course, the decision to feature a series of inserted flashbacks may have been down to the realisation that extensive scenes of walking can become a bit unexciting even when one has the advantage of the coastal way being photographed in colour by the splendid Hélène Louvart. This may explain too why the film opens with a short scene which anticipates a subsequent moment of high drama. In addition, some variety is found by showing Raynor and Moth having a series of encounters with strangers during their walk but, whether or not taken from the book and thus from reality, these bits and pieces have a flavour that tends to suggest flimsy fictional touches. They include passing contact with two young women: one is a serious episode about a girl (Gwen Currant) whose boyfriend appears oppressive and the other a contrasted comical incident in which they help a waitress (Olivia Edwards) to get one over on her unpleasant boss while also helping her to link up with the boy she fancies. Elsewhere, there is a neater episode about Moth being taken up by a well-off stranger (James Lance) who invites him into his home only because he has mistaken him for the poet Simon Armitage. However, this mistaken identity theme is then reprised leading into an unconvincing episode in which Moth seeking funds reads to a crowd from the poetry of Seamus Heaney. If neither the flashbacks nor these episodes fail to stand up that well this is felt all the more because the film runs for close on two hours. In the film's first half a series of written statements indicating that the couple have so far walked just, say, twelve miles followed by other relatively low distances leave one dismayed at how much is still ahead (even a total of ‘92 miles’ has this effect when the journey involves over 250 miles!).
However disappointing these weaknesses, the major problem about this film treatment lies elsewhere being related to the key fact that, although we are clearly meant to feel for Raynor and Moth, it is difficult to sympathise with their decision to undertake the walk in the first place. At one stage the sight of this couple in their fifties prompts a fellow hiker to describe them as irresponsible and that is without his knowing what Moth’s doctor has said. We, on the other hand, have heard his diagnosis including a warning that Moth should be cautious when climbing stairs. The South West Coast Path includes sections far more hazardous than any stairs so the endeavour that the couple undertake makes one regard them not just as foolhardy but as absolute idiots.
That fact is a hurdle which Gillian Anderson as Raynor and Jason Isaacs as Moth find it difficult to overcome although they both give dedicated, well-judged performances. Indeed, they are the best reason for seeing the film which comes close to being in essence a two-hander. However, I predict that not least with older audiences this film will be a hit. I can understand that most readily when it comes to viewers who have already read the memoir: they will have the advantage of having been won over into identifying with the couple already and of knowing how it all ends which in this instance will be an advantage. Given that Raynor Winn is herself one of the film’s co-producers one must assume that she approves this version of her book and I certainly admire Anderson and Isaacs both for their acting here and for their decision to play to the age of their characters eschewing anything that could be seen as a glamorisation. They are particularly effective when it comes to capturing the intimacy and depth of the bond between Raynor and Moth. These moments find The Salt Path at its best. But if you are looking for a deeply moving study of a couple faced with an alarming diagnosis, the 2019 film Ordinary Love starring Lesley Manville and Liam Neeson is in a different league altogether.
MANSEL STIMPSON
Cast: Gillian Anderson, Jason Isaacs, Hermione Norris, James Lance, Gwen Currant, Olivia Edwards, Lainey Shaw, Lloyd Hutchinson, Megan Placito, Rebecca Ineson, Tamlyn Henderson, Tucker St. Ivany.
Dir Marianne Elliott, Pro Elizabeth Karlsen, Stephen Woolley, Lloyd Levin and Beatriz Levin, Screenplay Rebecca Lenkiewicz, from the book by Raynor Winn, Ph Hélène Louvart, Pro Des Christina Moore, Ed Lucia Zucchetti and Gareth C. Scales, Music Chris Roe, Costumes Matthew Price.
BBC Film/Number 9 Films/Shadowplay Features/Lipsync Productions/Rocket Science-Black Bear.
115 mins. UK. 2024. UK Rel: 30 May 2025. Cert. 12A.
