The idea of completing the Camino de Santiago as a form of grieving over the death of his son, leads Tom to discover life lessons and characteristics that make way for a happier life. This is not the classic road trip movie that most people may conclude it as being. By the end of the movie you are left feeling inspired and wanted to do something that will change your life. The characters in this movie were, in my opinion, well casted. Each brought something to the new to the table throughout the storyline. While the movie is inspiring and enlightening, it is almost predictable at the same time. You know that in the end everything will end up being okay. Being predictable doesn't mean it's a bad movie, especially because the movie is so realistic.
A way of grouping characters for this movie would be grouping together the pilgrims and the non-pilgrims. Each pilgrim has more to their story than what they lead on to. The pilgrims the movie focuses on are Tom, Joost, Sarah, and Jack. Tom begins his pilgrimage almost as an accident. He had no intention of traveling hundreds of miles across Europe on foot. His adult son dies on his first night of attempting the trip, and Tom, coming to Europe to collect his son's remains, decides to take on the challenge of the Camino in honor of his late son. Joost is the first pilgrim Tom meets on his journey. Joost is traveling the Camino because he wants to lose weight and because he is meeting up with friends in a town near the end of the trip. Later in the movie we find out that he wants to lose weight because his wife will no longer sleep with him because she thinks he is too fat. Sarah leads us to believe that she is walking the Camino de Santiago because she wants the life changing experience and because she has vowed to, at the end, quit smoking cigarettes. Later we find out that she was married to a physically abusive man. She became pregnant, but had an abortion so that her husband would not be able to beat the child also. Jack is also a pilgrim by choice. He is a writer that is experiencing writer's block for his new novel. He came to the Camino in order to find inspiration for a new story. He asks every pilgrim he meets why they came to the Camino for creativity. He ends up finding this inspiration in Tom's story. The other grouping of people is non-pilgrims. These I consider to be the people that the pilgrims meet along their Camino that are not traveling. The people that live in the towns they pass through; such as the inn keepers, servers, or the gypsies. Each of the non-pilgrims has something to contribute to the story in their own way. The most influential non-pilgrims are the gypsies. Tom and the other pilgrims meet the gypsies by chance when a boy tries to steal Tom's backpack.
Tom doesn't come to Europe to become a pilgrim in the Camino de Santiago. He starts off the Camino in a state of grief and regret because the last conversation he had with his son wasn't a pleasant one. Each character came to the Camino for a different particular reason, but they all experience the same things along the way. The director, Emilio Estevez, (who was also the writer and the actor that played the character of Tom's son, Daniel) did a fantastic job of embracing the interactions that a pilgrim has along the Camino. Those interactions varied high and low, from people living in the towns they passed though, to the scenery of untouched nature along the horizon. Estevez not only made the Camino de Santiago look like a worthwhile trip, but caused a feeling that makes the audience want to go out and do something for themselves. He made the audience want to see the world and be inspired by both differences and similarities. Abuse is often seen in the form of a man abusing a woman. Emilio Estevez took this idea and included it in the story in more ways than one. There is the obvious abusive relationship that caused Sarah to walk the Camino. She was beaten by her husband, and aborted her unborn daughter so that he would not be able to beat her too. She came to the Camino to forgive herself maybe; Or maybe to allow herself to take back the control of her life and to stop living in fear. The other abusive relationship that is a little less obvious is the relationship between Joost and his wife. While Joost admits early on that one reason he is walking the Camino is because he wants to lose weight, near the end he mentions that his wife wont even sleep with him anymore because she thinks he is too fat. We don't often see or hear of a man being abused in this sort of way, but Estevez did a great job creating the character and the character's way of handling the situation. I have seen inspirational movies before, and each one brings something new to the table. The Way offered to me that you can turn something like grief into an inspirational adventure. While many movies start out with something sad or devastating and end on a happy-note, The Way had a slow progression back into a normal life.
Although grieving, Tom embarks on a journey that will without a doubt change his life and the way he views life forever.
A way of grouping characters for this movie would be grouping together the pilgrims and the non-pilgrims. Each pilgrim has more to their story than what they lead on to. The pilgrims the movie focuses on are Tom, Joost, Sarah, and Jack. Tom begins his pilgrimage almost as an accident. He had no intention of traveling hundreds of miles across Europe on foot. His adult son dies on his first night of attempting the trip, and Tom, coming to Europe to collect his son's remains, decides to take on the challenge of the Camino in honor of his late son. Joost is the first pilgrim Tom meets on his journey. Joost is traveling the Camino because he wants to lose weight and because he is meeting up with friends in a town near the end of the trip. Later in the movie we find out that he wants to lose weight because his wife will no longer sleep with him because she thinks he is too fat. Sarah leads us to believe that she is walking the Camino de Santiago because she wants the life changing experience and because she has vowed to, at the end, quit smoking cigarettes. Later we find out that she was married to a physically abusive man. She became pregnant, but had an abortion so that her husband would not be able to beat the child also. Jack is also a pilgrim by choice. He is a writer that is experiencing writer's block for his new novel. He came to the Camino in order to find inspiration for a new story. He asks every pilgrim he meets why they came to the Camino for creativity. He ends up finding this inspiration in Tom's story. The other grouping of people is non-pilgrims. These I consider to be the people that the pilgrims meet along their Camino that are not traveling. The people that live in the towns they pass through; such as the inn keepers, servers, or the gypsies. Each of the non-pilgrims has something to contribute to the story in their own way. The most influential non-pilgrims are the gypsies. Tom and the other pilgrims meet the gypsies by chance when a boy tries to steal Tom's backpack.
Tom doesn't come to Europe to become a pilgrim in the Camino de Santiago. He starts off the Camino in a state of grief and regret because the last conversation he had with his son wasn't a pleasant one. Each character came to the Camino for a different particular reason, but they all experience the same things along the way. The director, Emilio Estevez, (who was also the writer and the actor that played the character of Tom's son, Daniel) did a fantastic job of embracing the interactions that a pilgrim has along the Camino. Those interactions varied high and low, from people living in the towns they passed though, to the scenery of untouched nature along the horizon. Estevez not only made the Camino de Santiago look like a worthwhile trip, but caused a feeling that makes the audience want to go out and do something for themselves. He made the audience want to see the world and be inspired by both differences and similarities. Abuse is often seen in the form of a man abusing a woman. Emilio Estevez took this idea and included it in the story in more ways than one. There is the obvious abusive relationship that caused Sarah to walk the Camino. She was beaten by her husband, and aborted her unborn daughter so that he would not be able to beat her too. She came to the Camino to forgive herself maybe; Or maybe to allow herself to take back the control of her life and to stop living in fear. The other abusive relationship that is a little less obvious is the relationship between Joost and his wife. While Joost admits early on that one reason he is walking the Camino is because he wants to lose weight, near the end he mentions that his wife wont even sleep with him anymore because she thinks he is too fat. We don't often see or hear of a man being abused in this sort of way, but Estevez did a great job creating the character and the character's way of handling the situation. I have seen inspirational movies before, and each one brings something new to the table. The Way offered to me that you can turn something like grief into an inspirational adventure. While many movies start out with something sad or devastating and end on a happy-note, The Way had a slow progression back into a normal life.
Although grieving, Tom embarks on a journey that will without a doubt change his life and the way he views life forever.