Film Snail

The Way
The Way

7.1

The Way

PG-13·2010·128m

Summary

When his son dies while hiking the famed Camino de Santiago pilgrimage route in the Pyrenees, Tom flies to France to claim the remains. Looking for insights into his estranged child’s life, he decides to complete the 500-mile mountain trek to Spain. Tom soon joins up with other travelers and realizes they’re all searching for something.

Crew

Director, Screenplay

Emilio Estevez

Writer

Jack Hitt

Reviews

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tmdb28039023

August 25, 2022

1

Dr. Thomas Avery (Martin Sheen), an American ophthalmologist, goes to France following the death of his son Daniel, killed in the Pyrenees during a storm on the Camino de Santiago (aka the Way of St. James).

We see, by way of flashback, that Thomas and Daniel's relationship was strained – and according to the former had been so "since his mother died." Daniel went to Europe without his father's blessing ("We agreed that if l let you take me to the airport, you wouldn't lecture me about how l'm ruining my life"); additionally, Daniel had earlier broken the news to Thomas that he wasn't going to finish his doctorate ("Margaret Mead didn't become a great cultural anthropologist by staying in school").

Daniel is played by Emilio Estévez, who happens to be Sheen's real-life son; unfortunately, he also was 48 years old – and looked it – when the movie was released, thus making his character more 'midlife crisis' than 'teenage angst.'

I can believe 69-year-old (at the time) Sheen playing a 60-year-old man, but Estévez can't help coming off like a pathetic victim of arrested development, even if he's also aiming for nine years younger – which would make him about 40; regardless of whether Margaret Mead did or did not become "a great cultural anthropologist by staying in school," the fact remains that by age 35 she'd already published Coming of Age in Samoa and Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies, two influential works in her chosen field.

Daniel, conversely, not only hasn't even finished a doctorate, but didn't finish, for that matter, the Camino the Santiago either – he barely even started it, in point of fact; he died "only one day into the trek." All things considered, Daniel was kind of a screw-up; in that sense, Estévez should have gotten his brother Charlie to play him instead.

Media

Status:

Released

Original Language:

English

Budget:

$0.00

Revenue:

$13,900,000.00

Keywords

spain
france
parent child relationship
pilgrimage
road trip
pilgrim
travel
pyrenees mountain ridge
death of son
saint-jacques-de-compostelle
pèlerinage
camino de santiago