REVIEW: The Salt Path proves just a little disappointing

The Salt Path, based on Raynor Winn’s memoir, tells an endearing tale of redemption against stunning coastal scenery and the worst that nature can throw at Raynor and her husband.

But you end up wishing for just a little bit more emotional oomph to a story which is just a little bit too low key pretty much all the way through – the story of the couple’s unlikely trek along the South West Coast Path from Somerset to Dorset in the wake of two life-changing events.

At pretty much the same time as Moth gets diagnosed with a rare life-limiting degenerative brain disease which in theory gives him just a few years – mostly of decline – at best, the couple lose their farm following a disastrous (and only fairly vaguely explained) financial investment.

As the bailiffs are knocking at the door, Raynor happens to see a guidebook to the coast path. And so they set out on it for the simple reasons that they have got nowhere else to go and nothing else to do, poor Moth limping heavily. If we didn’t know that it was all going to end in the memoir on which the film is based, you’d wonder just how far they are going to get.

But they trudge on and on, and after Moth gives up his meds and endures a fairly ghastly withdrawal from them, so he starts to get stronger. Just as importantly, so a passer-by helpfully if rather heavily informs them, they learn to work with nature rather than fight against it.

Random numbers flash up from time to time to tell us how far they have travelled – numbers slightly devoid of context given we aren’t told how many days have elapsed. Equally annoyingly, we see some fabulous scenery and attractive towns and villages along the way, but none are identified. Presumably the film-makers are telling us they are in a timeless realm where it doesn’t actually matter exactly where they are because they are in no hurry… but from the viewer’s seat it would still be interesting to know.

Anyway, the distances stack up – but rather more remarkable is the fact that they manage to meet barely anyone of any interest along the way, certainly no one with their own story to tell. Instead, it’s about the fleeting interactions, occasionally kind, occasionally not, they find themselves on the end of – and the result feels just a little thin.

Maybe the problem is that The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry in Chichester’s Minerva Theatre is so fresh in mind, and wow, that certainly packed a punch and created real people in a similar tale of long-distance walking spurred by terminal diagnosis. The Salt Path movie is certainly better than the rather lame Harold Fry film of a year or two back, but it’s still just a touch disappointing. The music repeatedly and slightly annoyingly underlines just how awesome and inspiring the whole thing is. But the fact is: it isn’t. Or at least, not quite as much as it needs to be.