The Way (2011)

Crossing the Pyrenees and Basque country, then winding their way across northern Spain to the tomb of Saint James in Santiago de Compostela, pilgrims have walked the 800 km Camino de Santiago for over a thousand years. The reasons for undertaking such a journey are as varied as the pilgrims themselves. Most of them are seeking something that has little or nothing to do with religion, yet taps into a deep, nameless yearning for connection to the mystery.

In "The Way," four of these pilgrims find themselves thrown together by chance. As their stories unfold we meet Tom, played by Martin Sheen, completing the journey begun by his estranged son who died in a sudden mountain storm shortly after setting off. He is joined by: a jovial bear of a Dutchman, hoping to regain his wife's affection; an acerbic Canadian woman, trying to exorcise the anger built up in an abusive marriage; and an Irish author who masks his writer's block by talking nonstop.

The acting is superb, though some of the characters may have been a bit overdrawn at the beginning. Writer-Director Emilio Estevez, who is Martin Sheen's son and plays his son in the movie, deftly interweaves the development of the personal stories of the four main characters with the hardships and camaraderie of the Pilgrim's Way. He takes us through lush countryside and rocky hills, stopping in local inns, gathering with other pilgrims in the evening around meals, and then retiring to Spartan dormitories to start off again in the morning.

Gradually the experience of the Camino works its way into the spirits of the pilgrims. They become mirrors for each other, helping to strip away the protective layers that have preserved their pain and isolation, and with their new vulnerability, freeing them to feel and connect once more. In the end, the message of this poignant film is that opening our hearts to others is the real miracle. Connecting with them through kindness and laughter and joy is the magic that invites the presence of God.

A lovely, moving film.

My eyes were wet and I laughed out loud in the first fifteen minutes of "The Way," and I continued laughing and crying throughout. I left the theater feeling the generous glow that a good movie inspires. I'll now be telling everyone I know to see this film, on a big screen, and I'm already looking forward to seeing it again.

I was a bit anxious about "The Way." I anticipated so many ways a movie that features backpacking, pilgrimages, and religion could go wrong. Would it be excessively pious and maudlin? New Age-y and Christophobic? Simply a bad movie? There is a reason so many films focus on graphic, intimate scenes and explosions: those are easy to shoot and they arouse viewer interest. "The Way" rapidly calmed my anxiety. It's a honey of a movie.

Tom (Martin Sheen) is a sixty-something ophthalmologist. His son Dan (Emilio Estevez) dies in an accident. Tom travels to France to retrieve his son's body. Learning of his son's attempt to walk the camino, Tom decides to cremate his son's remains and carry them as he fulfills his son's plan.

Tom walks through picturesque, mountainous countryside and through the plazas of old towns. As happens when one is traveling, Tom encounters an assortment of eclectic characters. Joost (Yorick van Wageningen) is a corpulent, talkative, pot smoking Dutchman who is walking the trail to lose weight. Sarah (Deborah Kara Unger) is a sharp tongued, very angry Canadian blonde. Jack (James Nesbitt) is an Irish travel writer with the gift of gab he didn't just kiss the Blarney Stone, he went steady with it. There is a priest with a brain tumor who distributes rosaries, and pilgrims debating the roles of the French, the Spanish and the Basque in ancient battles against invading Moors. Waiters take very strong stands on tapas. Gypsies defend their honor.

The pilgrims sleep in spare hostel dormitories with snoring, coughing, shooshing roommates. They visit churches and enact rituals.

There was a moment in this movie in which I, a traveler and backpacker, was one hundred percent engaged. In superhero movies, I don't really care if the superhero gets the dilithium crystals to the giant spider. In this movie, a backpacker drops his pack into a rushing river that rapidly sweeps it toward the sea. THAT scene commanded my full engagement. The backpacker's pack contains his entire world, his heart, his safety, his entertainment, his identity, his survival. I was on the edge of my seat.

What happens in the movie is what happens when you travel, and when you pray. The demands of travel bring forth bonding rituals I'll listen to your rant; you'll bail me out of jail that create intimacy with unexpected, and all too temporary, companions. There are sudden and heart-wrenching confessions that make two strangers more intimate than family members. There are little triumphs that make it all worthwhile finding orange trees laden with fruit after a night of sleeping on cold ground, one night in a five-star hotel after punishing weeks of self-denial.

Martin Sheen is so convincing as Tom I really lost the sense of watching a movie. Tom is a man of few words or gestures, and Sheen's every subdued facial expression carries weight and feeling. I had the sense of those who interacted with Tom that I would appreciate a mere word from him more than a paragraph from someone less grounded and sincere.

I really disliked Joost at first, and, come to think of it, many of the other characters, as well, but the film, without any visible effort, brought me to appreciate them the way you can come to appreciate someone you've shared the road with. When Joost is asked why he is walking the trail and he finally tells why, it is a very poignant, precious moment, so utterly believable it could have been in a well-made documentary. Van Wageningen will receive many love letters from women who cannot separate him from Joost, a fictional character so believable he makes you want to hug him. James Nesbitt could be extemporizing his lines, they feel so lived-in. Deborah Kara Unger gives new life to an ancient prayer.

I wish the movie had done a couple of things it did not. I just did not believe that Tom could immediately begin walking the camino in anything but a halting fashion. Many non-hiker friends have called me the day after a hike with me to tell me that their feet are so covered with blisters they can't put on shoes, and their muscles are so sore they can't move (the big babies.) I would have liked to have seen Tom breaking his body in to the demands of the trail. I also would have liked to have seen even just a brief scene where he purchased footwear. Very few ophthalmologists cross the Atlantic with the proper footwear for a walk hundreds of kilometers long, and footwear is a big deal for a walker. I would like to have seen the walkers interact with their packs, something that all hikers do a tightening of the belt strap here, a loosening of the shoulder strap there. They become a part of your body.

I wish the direction and cinematography had done something more with the countryside and the historic plazas and churches, which are always shown in a way that is pretty, but not innovative. I wish we learned a bit about the keepers of the refugios, the hostels where pilgrims spend the night. To the pilgrims, the towns change every day. To the towns, the pilgrims change every day. How do these dovetailing experiences illuminate each other? And I wish more had been said about religion, although what little is said is intriguing and implies worlds of meaning. I wish more had been said about the alleged sacredness of some places.

These are minor complaints. This film is destined to become a much beloved classic. See it.

Buy The Way (2011) Now

I had no real idea of what the movie was about aside from something about a pilgrimage, but I felt like giving it a chance. I heard from some reviewers that it was good.

So I was unprepared for the emotional impact the film had from the beginning. The screenplay was wonderfully written, the characters were all flawed as each of us are. I don't want to provide too much details, because too much is described already.

I will say that the journey was an emotional one as well as a scenic splendor. As the viewer gets to accompany these pilgrims from diverse walks of life, you see their flaws and qualities up close.

The visual beauty of The Way cannot be overlooked. The innkeepers and fellow pilgrims all looked like regular human beings from everywhere. The music that accompanied the film was well chosen.

A deeply touching film.

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While I was on a trip to Argentina and Chile with a group of teachers in the summer of 2002, Pam and Rick, a married couple from Maine also on the trip, mentioned to me several times that they thought I should look into going on the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, since they knew I was a very devoted Catholic, and since I was discerning my call to the priesthood. At the time, I was a high school Spanish teacher living in Greenville, Mississippi, and a member of the Mississippi Teacher Corps from Ole Miss. I ended up walking the Camino in the summer of 2003 with my friend Nancy, one year before I entered seminary. I am now a priest in the Mississippi Delta a long way from my upbringing in Chicago and southern California. It is amazing where our journeys take us. Being a pilgrim is all about the journey, about taking yourself out of the ordinary routine and putting yourself into God's hands. The pilgrims call out this encouragement to one another "Buen Camino" wishing each other a good road, a good journey.

The characters in The Way were all called to the Camino de Santiago de Compostela for different reasons. Many of us don't even know why we are called. And in the end, we never know how we are going to change. What is a "true pilgrim"? That was a discussion Martin Sheen and the other pilgrims had one evening on their journey in Spain. It is a question most pilgrims ask themselves along the journey, and some pilgrims can become a bit rigid or judgmental about it. There probably is no good answer to that question. When you finish the Camino, you are asked for your motives for going. Many of the characters in that movie struggled with that question as well. Sometimes it is very difficult to put into words the way God is at work in our lives.

I do know that being a pilgrim is a big part of my identity today. The Camino is a big part of my life. I am planning to go back to Spain in April 2012. We leave the day after Easter. I am actually now a Catholic priest. I was not a priest the first time I hiked to Santiago de Compostela. This time around, I am going to start the walk in Pamplona with three of my friends from Mississippi. One other person is meeting us in Leon about two weeks later to walk the last 200 miles with us. We have been meeting on a monthly basis now for more than a year and a half, preparing as a group for this journey.

This is a wonderful movie. The one thing that was not touched upon in the movie in great detail was the physical challenge that confronts many pilgrimages. My friend who walked the Camino with me in 2003 got a bad foot infection on the very first day and was not able to walk much of The Way. I did not even have a blister, but my next Camino might be very different. This is a very inspiring, very spiritual movie. I applaud Martin Sheen and Emilio Estevez for their efforts. Their spirituality really shines in this movie. It is not an earth-shattering movie with big special affects and it is not a sequel in a big movie franchise. In many ways, this movie is different than most. We need more movies like this.

Update June 2012

I did walk the Camino in April/May 2012. It is amazing how much more popular it is now since the time I walked it in 2012. At the pilgrims' hostel in Leon, one of the Benedictine nuns talked to us about what it means to be a pilgrim. It is not primarily about being a fast walker or trying to rack up the most mileage each day or getting to the destination first. Being a pilgrim is to take everything in the relationships you make on the Camino, the sights, the sounds, the journey and processing it in your soul and finding out how it all relates to you spiritually. I met a man from Germany who told me that he was searching for something. He didn't know what questions to ask. He did not know what answers he was looking for. But he was on a quest, and that brought him to the Camino. I also met three men from New York on the Camino. Even though they were in their mid-30s, it was like they were plucked from a frat house at a university. Yet, they had decided to go on the Camino after one of them had seen this movie The Way. It is amazing to see the many people draw to this ancient pilgrimage from the Catholic Church as they search for answers and meaning in life. There will be many more American pilgrims going to Santiago de Compostela in the coming years, and this movie will be part of the reason why.

Want The Way (2011) Discount?

My wife and I saw this film. It had an unexpected influence on both of us. My Mom died at the end of September and while we always know they will go, it was difficult for me -and I am 63. I think it is worse when the second one goes. So, we saw the film and I did a couple of things that I rarely do. First, I downloaded the music (remember I am 63 and don't do things like that usually). Then I bought a book about the Camino. Finally, we leave this late Spring for the trip.

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