The South West Coast Path is a longest signposted long -distance hiking trail with a good 1,000 kilometers of Great Britain. It winds from Minhead along the coasts of Devon and Cornwall via Land's end to the port of Poole. Once created by the coast guard for smuggling defense, the path shown as a national trail has long since become a magnet for leisure hikers. Of course, a tour on the way does not always have to serve to shape the civilization of a holiday pleasure or personal construction.
As we experience in flashbacks, the Winn couple tackled the hike out of an existential emergency. The then homeless Raynor Winn wrote down the strictly experiences of himself and her husband in a kind of diary that later under the title “The salt path“Despite a few weaknesses, the film adaptation after a script by Rebecca Lenkiewicz has now succeeded – and this is mainly due to Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs, which you can take a few together through thick and thin.
Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs are absolutely credible than couple have trusted with each other for decades.
At the starting point in Minhead in the English county of Somerset, Raynor (Gillian Anderson) and Moth (Jason Isaacs) quickly make a selfie, then it starts: In your luggage you not only have your camping equipment, but also existential worries and needs. Due to an unfortunate investment, they were bought with the house and courtyard. Now the couple is there without a shelter. But that's not all. In the limping Moth, a degenerative nerve disease was also diagnosed without the prospect of healing, which affects its memory and ability to move. According to the doctor, he still has five to six years to live. The decision to hike was born out of pure despair. But he is also associated with the hope of somehow to find consolation.
The hike leads through the wonderfully rugged coastal landscape in the southwest of England. It delivers beautiful but hardly spectacular pictures from the area. What comes across well: The South West Coast Path is not an easy way. He is exhausting with a number of steep climbs – even for all those who are still on foot. For someone with a walking disability like Moth, on the other hand, he is a real challenge – every single day anew …
Life of 40 British pounds a week (for two people)
The theater director Marianne Elliott, who delivers her cinema debut with “Der Salzpfad”, does not transfigure the trip. She saves the already battered couple neither serious storm nor other in unbill, who can expose hiking. Once the two are surprised by the flood when they opened their tent on the beach. Comfort? None! For food and logis, they only have £ 40 from a tax dismissal. So the South West Coast Path almost becomes a kind of passion path for the Winns.
So it also becomes coherent how the spouses ultimately do the adventurous undertaking. They grow on every overcome difficulty. Hiking can be liberating – and cannot the trip also be considered metaphorically? It continues – at least for a certain amount of time – how in general in life. But what if you have reached the end of the hike? Then what comes? After all, the house is still gone – and the debt and Moth's illness are still there. Marianne Elliott works out this existential uncertainty finely.
The real Moth and Raynor Winn actually went through the arduous path.
She can rely fully on her two stars. “File X” investigator Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs, known primarily as Lucius Malfoy from the “Harry Potter” films, credibly embody a pair of sworn in. The mutual affection and the familiarity of their figures, which resulted from many years together, is always noticeable. Together they defy many a delicate situation. Raynor sometimes has to be strong for two because her husband is always obtained from his illness. No problem for Gillian Anderson, who acts here away from all glamor.
Like many roadmovies, many hiking films of encounters with people live. This is how Raynor and Moth come into contact with a wide variety of people. Some are more, others less helpful. The most interesting is the acquaintance with a girl who may also be mistreated by her horny friend – and that takes a short section of the way. Unfortunately, this episode is in the sand, as other encounters are briefly dealt with. The same applies to the couple's relationship to his students. The director gambles off potential.
Conclusion: A nothing transfigured, based on real events, hiking drama after the international bestseller of the same name, which makes the difficulty of the path more than just guessed and also illustrates the needs, but also the strong emotional binding of Raynor and Moth Winn. One or the other hiking sequence could have been a little shorter, then might have been a little more space for the secondary characters.