ADVENTURE; 2hr 1min
STARRING: Martin Sheen, Emilio Estevez, James Nesbitt, Deborah Kara Unger, Yorick van Wageningen
The long way: Sheen
Nothing could be more saddening for a father than the death of a son from whom he has become remote. When his adult son Daniel dies unexpectedly, widowed Californian eye doctor Tom Avery (a wary, haunted Sheen) is shocked into an awareness of how little he really knew him. Daniel (Estevez) is killed in a storm while making a centuries-old, 800km pilgrimage on El Camino de Santiago, which runs from the French Pyrenees to Santiago de Compostela in northwest Spain. In France to collect Daniel’s remains, Tom, who previously refused to walk a golf course, decides to make the physically taxing pilgrimage himself while scattering his son’s ashes.
It’s a poignant decision, especially given the actual father-son relationship of Sheen and writer-director Estevez, who never overplays his emotionally loaded hand. Angry, hurting Tom isn’t inclined to be sociable but a trio of fellow lost and searching souls (Kara Unger, Nesbitt and van Wageningen) keep him company regardless on a mettle-testing journey to awareness, friendship and resolution.
