The Way

We are living at a great time for faith-related films. Virtually all of my trips to the cinema this year have been to see movies in which Christianity has played a positive part in the storyline. Last week I reviewed Warrior and today I’d like to say a few words about my most recent cinema outing to see The Way…

The Camino de Santiago is a 500-mile pilgrimage route from the town of St. Jean Pied de Port in France to the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Spain. The story begins with the death of a pilgrim, Daniel Avery, shortly after beginning this pilgrimage. His father, Tom, who had a strained relationship with his son, travels from America to France to identify his son’s body and return him home.

When Tom arrives in France, he meets a policeman who explains to him about the pilgrimage his son was undertaking. Shortly before Daniel left America he asked his dad to go on a trip with him, but his father declined the offer.

Now that his son is dead, he decides to honour belatedly his son’s request. He resolves to walk the Camino in his son’s place and take Daniel’s ashes along with him, scattering them along the way (you’re not actually allowed to do this).

Tom is extremely single-minded in his journey. In many ways, the audience is left to guess at what is going on inside the head of this stoic figure, as he doesn’t exactly wear his heart on his sleeve. Tom is played expertly by Martin Sheen who, incidentally, was inspired to take his screen name from our beloved Grandpa Sheen. He gives a great performance as Daniel’s father.

Tom doesn’t really want to engage with his fellow pilgrims, but he inevitably picks up several along the way, all of whom are making the pilgrimage for their own, mostly non-religious and idiosyncratic motivations. As they journey together these pilgrims slowly begin to take the form of a family, albeit a rather dysfunctional one…

The movie was written and directed by Martin Sheen’s son, Emilio Estevez, who also played the role of Daniel. What I really liked about this piece of cinema was its understated delivery. The religious themes of the story are discussed but they never devolve into sermons, making this an enjoyable movie to watch, regardless of one’s spiritual background. I really did like this movie, although I do suppose that it was inevitable that “The Restless Pilgrim” would enjoy a movie about pilgrimage… 😉

“The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page” – St. Augustine

Rather than risk spoiling the film for you, I won’t say any more. Instead, I’d invite you go and watch it. I’m sure you won’t be disappointed.