Review: Martin Sheen’s subtle performance leads The Way

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This article was published 10/11/2011 (5426 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

This movie almost feels like an exercise in Sheen counter-programming coming from Charlie Sheen’s brother Emilio Estevez and dad Martin Sheen.

Unlike the Charlie we’ve seen lately, it is meditative. It does not shoot from its hip. It is even sombre (not to say sober). It is about self-realization as opposed to self-gratification. And finally, it is spiritual without being messianic about it.

The “way” of the title refers to El Camino de Santiago, a pilgrimage route through the Pyrenees to Santiago, Spain. California optometrist Tom (Martin Sheen) is on a golf course when he gets the news that his only son Daniel (Emilio Estevez) has perished in a mishap just one day into the 800-kilometre trek.

A brief early scene shows the relationship between father and son is prickly, due partly to Daniel’s refusal to settle down. (“You don’t choose a life, dad. You live one.”) Tom flies to France to collect his son’s remains. His silent mourning gives way to a steely resolution that Tom never explains. He will take his son’s equipment and complete the pilgrimage for him.

It promises to be a solitary journey. But the Camino is well-travelled, and a few individuals inexplicably gravitate to the brusque American. Joost (Yorick van Wageningen) is a pot-smoking Dutchman, making the journey in a last-ditch effort to lose weight, apparently at the behest of his estranged wife. Joost notices Tom’s habit of surreptitiously scattering bits of his son’s ashes along the route and manages a nebulous glimpse into the purpose of Tom’s journey.

Canadian actress Deborah Kara Unger shows up to play, refreshingly, a rude Canadian named Sarah. She ostensibly is making the journey before quitting her cigarette habit. She has her own personal reasons for the trip. As with Tom, the pilgrimage is at least partly an act of penance.

Rounding out the multinational crew is Jack (James Nesbitt), an Irish travel writer attempting to overcome a case of writer’s block, and uncovering unexpected inspiration along the way.

Estevez scripted the film as well as directed and, apart from a contrived, awkward scene that serves to introduce us to the panicky Jack, it has the organic feel of a long journey in which a character may show up, disappear, and show up a little later in different circumstances.

Martin Sheen holds it together. His Tom is flawed and remote, but Sheen gives us just enough emotion to keep us watching his every move. It is a subtle, dignified performance.

And while the film is not a travelogue, it does have the added appeal of some often exquisite cinematography by Juan Miguel Azpiroz that captures both bucolic landscapes and ancient architecture with equal grace.

Yes, that’s right, you read the words “Sheen,” “dignity” and “grace” in one review.

 

randall.king@freepress.mb.ca