A One Mann’s Movies review of “The Salt Path” (2025).
I’ve been eagerly anticipating “The Salt Path” for some months now… ever since I saw Jason Isaacs talking about it at a “Mark Kermode in 3D” event earlier in the year. I really like Isaacs as an actor and Gillian Anderson too. The Illustrious Mrs Movie Man absolutely loved Raynor Winn’s memoir, on which the film is based. We are even walking – in stages, I should add – the South-West Coast Path (we’ve so far only got from Poole to Chesil Beach). So, this movie really had a lot going for it in my eyes. And clearly in the eyes of hoards of older cinemagoers as well, since the screenings at my local Everyman cinema have been packed out over the weekend.
But, and I’m sorry if I am in a grumpy minority here, I just didn’t rate it.
Bob the Movie Man Rating:
“The Salt Path” Plot:
Moth Winn (Jason Isaacs) and Raynor Winn (Gillian Anderson) lose everything they own after a business deal goes badly wrong. In desperation, they buy a cheap tent; sleeping bags that are way too thin; and set out walking the South-West Coast Part that runs 630 miles from Minehead in Somerset to Poole in Dorset. Adding insult to financial injury, Moth has been diagnosed with a terminal neurodegenerative condition, Corticobasal Degeneration (CBD) and can barely walk or think straight.
Certification:
UK: 12A; US: NR. (From the BBFC web site: “Infrequent strong language, moderate sex, drug misuse”.)
Talent:
Starring: Jason Isaacs, Gillian Anderson, Angus Wright, James Lance, Hermione Norris, Gwen Currant,
Robbie O’Neill.
Directed by: Marianne Elliott.
Written by: Rebecca Lenkiewicz. (Based on the book by Raynor Winn).
Running Time: 1h 55m.
“The Salt Path” Summary:
Positives:
- A really touching love story about two people battling against adversity, illness and social prejudice.
- A film that illustrates the kindness of strangers and, at times, the opposite.
- Beautiful scenary, wonderfully shot.
Negatives:
- An episodic film that just ends… in, for me, a MOST unsatisfactory way.
- Some of the quirky characters met along the way didn’t come across to me as real at all.
- Often incomprehensible mumbled dialogue
Review of “The Salt Path”:
A film celebrating love and life’s challenges.
I’ll start with aspects of the film I really liked: Isaacs and Anderson play Moth and Raynor as an older couple very much in love and willing to work through the issues they have. “In sickness and in health” has never been brought to the screen better. It is clear at one point that Raynor is seething with unshared anger about how Moth could be so stupid as to get themselves into the financial mess they are in. But they work through it and a sex scene in a tent after a very cold dip is sensitively and wonderfully done.
I also really liked the way that the individuals they meet along the way interact with them. At various points they engage in discussions with holidaymakers who express interest in them doing the long-distance walk. But then the mood changes. “Retired are you?” asks one. “No, homeless actually” replies Moth and the person recoils in horror. It made me reexamine my own attitude to homeless people in a very uncomfortable way. It’s a simple reminder that we are all only one financial disaster or war away from having to sleep in a cardboard box under Waterloo Bridge.
A film celebrating life’s oddballs.
The film also celebrates some of the wonderful oddball characters that Britain manages to nurture in its multi-cultural heart.
At one point, they are befriended by a couple and their creepily helpful daughters who promise them showers, drinks, a massage for Moth(!) and lasagne believing Moth to be a famous author, Simon Armitage, who is also walking the path. Once the truth is out, they are unceremoniously booted-out with no lasagne consumed!
In another, at a very low ebb, they are ‘adopted’ by a hippy community living ‘off grid’ (of which I know there are a number around the coastline). The kindness of a group of people sharing what little they have (including weed!) with those more in need is touching.
And as perhaps the most oddball pair, a mismatched couple of wild swimmers, who teach Moth and Ray the best moment to pick blackberries.
But, for me, a number of these encounters – the lady on the beach near the end is a case in point – came across as entirely false and unnatural. This was either down to the writing or the acting or both
It’s episodic in nature.
Having just listened to Jason Isaacs talking about the film on Kermode and Mayo’s “Take” podcast, he described the film as being less of a “story” and more as a series of random episodes. I have no doubt that these episodes happened and that the characters they met along the way were pretty much as depicted. But random encounters don’t necessarily add up to a coherent film, unless it’s a documentary. What I think was lacking here was some latitude to ‘tweak’ reality to work the stories into something that works rather better as a story.
In one example, Raynor ‘rescues’ a young girl (Gwen Currant) from an abusive boyfriend (Robbie O’Neill). “Oh, interesting new dynamic” I thought as Sealy tags along with them like a puppy. But then she just turns back and leaves them again and you realise that this is just another of the films little episodic cul-de-sacs.
Above all, my main gripe with the film, is the way it abruptly ends. But this would drop spoilers for the film so I will address this in a “Spoiler” section below the trailer.
Isaacs and Anderson are a class-act, but….
Hello to Jason Isaacs! He’s a class-act and delivers the best performance in the movie, ably (or rather dis-ably) demonstrating the ongoing effects of the illness*. Isaacs is also really clever in displaying how an over-winter in a barn allows the symptoms to start creeping back again.
(* I have one criticism of the script regarding this aspect of the story though. In his “Take” interview, Jason Isaacs reveals that the “Beowulf” reading to tourists is supposed to be highly-dramatic because Moth’s disease is giving him great trouble at reading. This scene is a sign that his symptoms are in reverse. This – the difficulty in reading – didn’t come across to me at all through the script.)
Gillian Anderson is also good, particularly when she is celebrating their successes. It’s also great to see an older and very attractive woman going without make-up or perfect hair. However, when Raynor got into more hand-wringing dramatic segments, Anderson came across as ‘acting’ a bit too much for me.
Where I had an issue with both actors though is in their spoken dialogue. Whether this is down to the actors mumbling their lines or poor sound recording (slash, lack of post-production dubbing), much of the dialogue between the pair (particularly the conversations inside the tent) were completely incomprehensible.
Beautiful scenary, but not enough of it!
Having been walking the South West Coast Path myself I can confirm that there is nothing more beautiful than the coast on a balmy day with the wild-flowers out, the sun shining off the sea and a kestrel buzzing around your head. Similarly, there are few scenes more dramatic (though not quite as pleasant!) as a stormy day with the wind howling and the sea hammering against the cliffs. All of this is beautifully captured by the DP, Hélène Louvart. But given that we see a lot of Somerset and Cornwall, and a little bit of Devon, I bet the Dorset Tourist Board are feeling mightily short-changed by the film. Dorset is once again an overlooked county…. a beautiful county you “just drive through to get somewhere else”!
Summary Thoughts on “The Salt Path”
I know a lot of people have loved this film (it currently has a 7.2 on IMDB) and many critics have rated it highly. But I’m afraid I have to put this down as a big disappointment: a view shared by both the illustrious Mrs Movie Man (who unlike me, has read and loved the book) and the Saintly Sarah Shaw (who saw this independently and was tight-lipped with her disappointment until we’d seen it).
Where to Watch it (Powered by Justwatch)
Trailer for “The Salt Path”:
The trailer is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQ7RJCOm-c8.
Spoiler Section:
Don’t read past this point if you’ve not seen the movie.
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NO, SERIOUSLY!
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That abrupt ending.
What frustrates me so much about this film is that it just ends! I kept thinking, as we worked through the film, that they had better hurry up with the story else we will get to the end of the film before they even reach Lands End… and they never did! We cut from a stirring walk across a beach to captions explaining what happened in the rest of their story. If I had been the producers, given the marketing buzz about the film, I would at the very least have replaced this with a “To Be Continued” while I (easily) raised the necessary funding to produce “The Salt Path 2”! There seems to be so much of the story left to tell. Most unsatisfactory.
But I commented that they never reached Lands End…. or did they? There is a moment where they share knowing glances before they proceed up a path to a promentary with a stone structure on the top. They then share dialogue about how they should just keep walking… maybe get a teaching job in Plymouth etc. Were we supposed to be made to believe that THIS point was Lands End? Because, I’ve been there, and this is most definitely not it! I know that Lands End is privately owned (probably by pirates, who want an arm and a leg to film there)…. but surely the location could have been easily mocked up with a few thousand quid if needed? It’s all a bit odd.
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