The Salt Path : film review

Wonderful acting and beautiful scenery but somehow this epic walk has too many mountains and not enough valleys.

I saw The Salt Path at the Beacon cinema in Eastbourne on 17th June 2025. I had previously read the walking memoir by Raynor Winn, on which the film is based. It was very true to the book but this very different medium must be different from the book.

Where it was better was in showing some of the scenery: fantastic shots of locations along the path, often with the camera swooping out to emphasise the tiny creatures taking on this vast challenge. The acting was superb: we expect acting of this quality from Gillian Anderson (playing Raynor Winn) but I thought Jason Isaacs (Moth Winn) was even better. Mind you, both of them saved their best acting moments for when there were no words. Their facial expressions, their bodies, spoke louder than the dialogue which was often mumbled (it took me half the film to work that the husband is called Moth and I’d already read the book so I only had to remember this detail).

But somehow, the film liked the visceral drama of the book. We are made well aware from the start in the book that Moth has a terminal diagnosis and that they have lost both home and livelihood. In the film, they were already walking when a flashback memory about how they lost the home was triggered by Moth telling someone that they were homeless and it was only later that we discovered why Moth shouldn't be walking at all. This undermined the hook of that first scene when their tent is almost swept away by the incoming tide and Moth does his superhero act (in the book he is wearing underpants and his rucksack as well as carrying the tent; for some reason the film downplayed this image).

Furthermore, the book did a better job, by being more explicit, I suppose, of contrasting the binary attitudes of those who react to their homelessness and poverty. It spent more time with their being mistaken for the poet Simon Armitage, prioritising light comedy over a hard-hitting social message.

The film also seemed rather slow.

The tomatometer (critics' ratings) on Rotten Tomatoes scored it a respectable 84% but the popcornmeter (audience) was less enthusastic at only 64%. IMDb gave it 7/10. The Guardian gives it 3/5 stars and rather damns the film by saying "the best thing about watching the couple’s hardship is knowing there is a happy end coming" which is like saying that a spoiler improves the story.

The film did want me to return to the days when I enjoyed (mostly, see blister above) long walks but the book was more persuasive.