The Salt Path: A Film About Walking, Losing Everything, and Somehow Finding More

 By rights, The Salt Path should be the sort of film I avoid like a vegetarian sausage. It is about walking. Slowly. Along the coast. With very little exploding. And yet, annoyingly, it works.

Based on Raynor Winn’s memoir, the film tells the story of two people who, in the space of about five minutes, lose their home, their money and their sense of where life is supposed to be heading. One of them is also diagnosed with a serious illness, because obviously the universe felt the day was going a bit too well. So they do what any sane person would do. They shoulder rucksacks, put on boots that look permanently damp, and walk the South West Coast Path.

This is not a film about heroic triumphs or inspirational speeches shouted at sunsets. It is about blisters, rain, hunger, and the slow humiliation of discovering that modern life collapses very quickly when you do not have a bank card. Which is precisely why it feels honest.

Gillian Anderson, who can convey more with a raised eyebrow than most actors manage with an entire monologue, is quietly superb. Jason Isaacs matches her beat for beat, playing a man whose pride is eroded not by failure, but by kindness from strangers. There is no melodrama. No violin-led emotional ambush. Just people being worn down and then, inch by inch, rebuilt.

The real star, though, is the landscape. Britain’s coastline has rarely looked so unforgiving and so beautiful at the same time. The sea is not a romantic backdrop here. It is a presence. Indifferent. Eternal. Quite happy to let you pass or wipe you off the map without comment. Watching it, you realise that walking beside something that old has a way of shrinking your problems to their correct size.

What The Salt Path understands, and what many films about hardship do not, is that resilience is boring to look at up close. It is repetitive. It is getting up again, putting on wet socks, and moving forward because there is nothing else to do. And somehow, in capturing that monotony, the film finds something deeply moving.

This is not a film that tells you to quit your job and walk across Britain. It is far more dangerous than that. It suggests that dignity does not come from comfort, that possessions are alarmingly temporary, and that love, when properly tested, turns out to be far tougher than any cliff path.

I went in expecting to admire the scenery and feel mildly impatient. I came out oddly reflective, slightly unsettled, and with a powerful urge to stop complaining about trivial nonsense. Which, frankly, is the cinematic equivalent of witchcraft.

The Salt Path is quiet, stubborn, and emotionally precise. Much like the people it portrays. And long after the credits roll, it keeps walking alongside you.