A review of the new film “The Salt Path”
For Staffordshire couple Raynor and Moth Winn, life suddenly went horribly wrong when they became homeless following a disastrous investment and he was diagnosed with a debilitating and ultimately terminal illness. In an act of sheer desperation, they decide to walk the South West Coast Path, a 630-mile trek around the coastline of Cornwall, Devon and Dorset. On the way, Moth finds that exercise and nature are better than medication and Ray discovers that she will do anything for him in what is essentially a very moving love story.
Raynor Winn subsequently turned the experience into a bestselling memoir titled “The Salt Path” which was published in 2018 (two more volumes have now followed) and, seven years later, this screen adaptation covers the first half of that challenge and concludes with an encounter with an eccentric woman that provides the enigmatic title for both book and film: “Yes, you have the look … When it’s touched you, when you let it be , you’ll never be the same again … You’re salted.”
Gillian Anderson as Ray and Jason Isaacs as Moth are excellent and a trio of women – writer Rebecca Lenkiewicz, cinematographer Hélène Louvart and director Marianne Elliott – do their best to turn this astonishing tale of redemption into an engaging film, but the narrative is little more than a series of small moments with no real drama. The film was funded by the BBC and it will definitely have an audience on the small screen, but audiences will not flock to the cinema to view it.