Thomas Avery, played by Sheen, is a successful optometrist, country club golfer, with one adult son from whom he is somewhat estranged. (played in snippets by the writer, director, producer, Emilio Estevez, one of Martin's several sons--he is not an only child. I found myself wondering if he wants to be). His son has given up a doctoral program to see the world, not to choose a life, as one character says, but to live one.
His son, Daniel, dies in a a freak accident in a storm as he begins the pilgrimage, alone. Avery is no longer a particularly religious man, although the vestiges of his Catholicism (he crosses himself several times during the film) remain. Upon arrival in the town which begins the road of the Way, he identifies his son's body, and in a moment of true impulse, decides to complete what his son could not, with his boy's cremains in a plastic bag in a metal box. He leaves the ashes along the Way.
There is an underlying anger in this man, and he wishes to be alone in his grief. as he walks along. So much of it seems to be a solitary brooding. He is unable, however, to stay solo and he meets three people with whom, almost despite himself, he ultimately bonds. One is Jack, a garrulous Irishman, with writer's block, dissaffected from faith and Churches both, but figuring he might be able to break his block by writing about the pilgrims he meets along the path. Another is Yost, a sensitive Dutchman, who shares his pills (ambien) and hash with his fellow travellers. His reason for the extended and harsh walk is to "lose weight" he says, not entirely tongue in cheek. Then there is Sarah, the seemingly hard Canadian who offers initially that her intent is to smoke to road's end and then give it up, although we learn that she aborted her child to avoid providing another victim for a husband's abuse. As all of us are, each of these souls are wounded particularly in relationship to themselves, and others, and although it is never acknowledged openly, to God Himself. Although the Way has a faith based beginning, in the movie God is an undertone rather than a crux. But He can be seen, if one is looking for Him, even in this otherwise primarily humanistic film.
After releasing, in a drunken stupor, his rage at the world in the guise of his companions, a chastened Thomas begins to soften toward them, toward their shared pain, and suffering. He begins to leet them into his experience of loss.
When they finally arrive at the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela and stand in the entrance, it is the man with the desire to lose weight who follows the tradition of approaching the statue of St. James (the theory is that St. James ended up here) on his knees, a form of penance, of which the entire Way is intended to be for the believer. Even Jack goes inside. All are awed by the massive censer that incenses and purifies the altar during the Mass which is only briefly glimpsed. From there, they go to the site where each person leaves a stone and a message or a prayer.
Jack intends to go a little farther, to the sea itself, where he has been advised by a gypsy the group encounters along the way (his son steals Jack's backpack and it is returned to him) to release the rest of the ashes.
The broken Jack can now heal.
One reviewer noted that the movie is slow in parts, but he acknowledges, that this would be appropriate to a "walk. This a journey in every way. I liked it. I felt I was with them rather than just watching them.
I began to warm up to each of the characters just as Jack did. I began to see their pain and watch it get released, in small bits, as befits real life.
At some point in our lives, we are all faced more urgently with finding our true selves. Maybe that is why I liked this movie, because that urgency (I do not mean panic, but in the sense of turning point) has come for me in the five or so years, but particularly in this latter year of 2011.
The way Jack has travelled through his fictional life changes with his pilgrimage. The way this Djinn has travelled thus far that seems to be changing too, but I have not yet had the epiphany the movie proposes for Jack. Maybe I need to travel the Camino del Santiago. I have a friend who long ago suggested we do it when we retired. It looks like both of us will have time now.
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