The Way - A Uplifting Journey

                                                                       
                                           One of the best films of the year, The Way is a rather unexpectedly beautiful family piece that centers itself around the eternal, undying bond between a father and the son, he barely knew but loved all along. "The Way" might draw you to make the same journey like the one in the movie.

 What It's All About?
                                      Dr. Thomas Avery (Martin Sheen) is an ophthalmologist in California. He’s a widower whose only son, Daniel (Emilio Estevez), has decided to abandon his doctoral candidate in order to travel around the world, studying people in real life and not from behind a desk.
 
    As he explains to his father:  “You don’t choose a life. You live one.”

                                                     But soon afterwards, Tom receives a phone call from a small French village. Caught in a blizzard, Daniel died while hiking “El Camino de Santiago” or “The Way of Saint James,” a 780-kilometer trip (nearly 500 miles) from the French side of the border, across the mountains to the northwestern Spain.  After having Daniel’s remains cremated, Tom impulsively decides to finish his son’s trip, placing the ashes in his backpack and joining other ‘pilgrims’ who are making the picturesque pilgrimage for various personal reasons.

The Good 
               Like most great films, The Way is about more than one thing—family, grief, community, hiking , each thing for a different audience segment. It is first and foremost, though, a meditation on the spiritual discipline of a pilgrimage. Sensitive without being sentimental, writer/director "Emilio Estevez"  allows the simple, and enlightened story to unfold slowly, as the characters reveal themselves more through their actions than their words.

                        The film is situated in a place, in which spiritual questions are framed in a Christian context, but it does not attempt to compare religions or emphasize the notion that, Christianity answers to all universal questions.


                          The film may be a little too slow for younger viewers, but it is a sort of film one could watch with a large group of friends and be delighted about the content. 
                          "The Way", might head to more or less exactly where you think it is going, and ensure a happy ending for all involved. But, true to the movie's point, the path it takes to get there is really the thing that makes it great. And make no mistake, this movie is great. 

 Trailer

The Way - Imdb 

The Way - Wikipedia