Based on Raynor Winn's autobiographical book, The Salt Path sees the estimable Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs take on the roles of Winn and her husband, who has been diagnosed with a rare and fatal cerebral disorder. Just to compound their troubles, he has just lost a legal battle and through that, they've been evicted from their house. No room for self-pity for the couple, though, so they set out on an unfeasibly long 630-mile walk along the topographically rather challenging coastline of South West England, eating little but packet noodles and sleeping in a tent. Somehow, after a very shaky start, her husband grows stronger and naturally the change of environment and encounters with other people on the way, ranging from the unwelcoming to the very hospitable or just plain odd, are attributed with the improvement.
This might otherwise be taken as just the usual cinematic licence, but while there are, of course, some obvious interludes, emphases and lines added for dramatic or comic effect, it's clear that the bare bones of the story are fundamentally things as they happened. So neither does it wander far into melodrama or sickly sweetness, as too many films dealing with terminal illness do, and the empathic performances of Anderson and Isaacs play a large part in ensuring this.
7/10
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