the salt path...

Moira and I went along to the Watershed yesterday (for me, the third visit in 8 days!) to see Marianne Elliott’s film of Raynor Winn’s bestselling memoir ‘The Salt Path’. I’d read the book in 2019.
You’re probably already aware of the story… in 2013, in the space of a week, Raynor Winn (played by Gillian Anderson in the film) and her husband Moth (Jason Isaacs) - aged 50 and 53 respectively and married for 32 years - lost their farmhouse home and their livelihood… and Moth was diagnosed with a rare and incurable degenerative brain disease. They were utterly broke and broken… and homeless. As they hid under the stairs from bailiffs, Winn spotted an old book she’d read 30 years before, about a man who walked the South West Coastal Path with his dog… and, then and there, she resolved that THAT was what they were going to do! The resulting book is their story of their experiences of walking the 630 miles (which they split over two summers) from Minehead to Poole… the film covers perhaps just a quarter of the journey.
Before seeing the film, I had significant reservations about actors ‘playing the roles’ of the couple – which had been so effectively portrayed in the book. Anderson and Isaacs were actually very good, but I think my misgivings were generally justified. Inevitably, there were events missing from the film (and also some that I felt were overplayed) and I think the film also failed to underline that, despite the consultant’s recommendation for Moth to rest, the exercise/activity had a beneficial effect.
All that said, I did actually enjoy the film… it tells a truly inspirational, humbling story about a husband+wife’s determination to drag themselves from the depths of despair to live ‘wild and free’ on a pittance and, in doing so, came to discover a new liberating part of themselves… and, of course, the film was able to capitalise on something that the book couldn’t fully encompass – the beauty and character of the South West Coastal Path!