The Way

A Modern Canterbury Tales
Crossing the Pyrenees and Basque country, then winding their way across northern Spain to the tomb of Saint James in Santiago de Compostela, pilgrims have walked the 800 km Camino de Santiago for over a thousand years. The reasons for undertaking such a journey are as varied as the pilgrims themselves. Most of them are seeking something that has little or nothing to do with religion, yet taps into a deep, nameless yearning for connection to the mystery.

In "The Way," four of these pilgrims find themselves thrown together by chance. As their stories unfold we meet Tom, played by Martin Sheen, completing the journey begun by his estranged son who died in a sudden mountain storm shortly after setting off. He is joined by: a jovial bear of a Dutchman, hoping to regain his wife's affection; an acerbic Canadian woman, trying to exorcise the anger built up in an abusive marriage; and an Irish author who masks his writer's block by talking nonstop.

The acting is superb,...

Beautiful and Special. See It.
My eyes were wet and I laughed out loud in the first fifteen minutes of "The Way," and I continued laughing and crying throughout. I left the theater feeling the generous glow that a good movie inspires. I'll now be telling everyone I know to see this film, on a big screen, and I'm already looking forward to seeing it again.

I was a bit anxious about "The Way." I anticipated so many ways a movie that features backpacking, pilgrimages, and religion could go wrong. Would it be excessively pious and maudlin? New Age-y and Christophobic? Simply a bad movie? There is a reason so many films focus on graphic, intimate scenes and explosions: those are easy to shoot and they arouse viewer interest. "The Way" rapidly calmed my anxiety. It's a honey of a movie.

Tom (Martin Sheen) is a sixty-something ophthalmologist. His son Dan (Emilio Estevez) dies in an accident. Tom travels to France to retrieve his son's body. Learning of his son's attempt to walk the camino, Tom...

Superb!
I had no real idea of what the movie was about aside from something about a pilgrimage, but I felt like giving it a chance. I heard from some reviewers that it was good.
So I was unprepared for the emotional impact the film had from the beginning. The screenplay was wonderfully written, the characters were all flawed as each of us are. I don't want to provide too much details, because too much is described already.
I will say that the journey was an emotional one as well as a scenic splendor. As the viewer gets to accompany these pilgrims from diverse walks of life, you see their flaws and qualities up close.
The visual beauty of The Way cannot be overlooked. The innkeepers and fellow pilgrims all looked like regular human beings from everywhere. The music that accompanied the film was well chosen.
A deeply touching film.

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