The Salt Path

A couple lose everything. A court ruling takes their house, and in the same week the husband is diagnosed with a rare condition; the doctors give him a few years. They have nowhere to go. They make a decision: to walk the thousand kilometre coast path along the southwest of England from end to end. They have a tent, very little money, and no certainty about what they will eat each day. Marianne Elliott directs from a screenplay by Rebecca Lenkiewicz. Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs are in the cast. The source is Raynor Winn's memoir of the same name. It screened at the Toronto film festival on 6 September 2024 and opened in Britain on 30 May 2025. The book itself is at the centre of an argument. After the film's release The Observer published an investigation claiming that the couple's real names differ, that the reason they lost the house was not as described, that the author had been accused of taking money from a former employer, and that the couple had owned a house in France since 2007. The account of the husband's illness was questioned as well. Winn accepted that mistakes had been made, said the allegations were highly misleading, and took legal advice. The film was made before that argument and follows the book faithfully. The walking was shot on location and the landscape stands inside the narrative as a pressure. Who it is for: viewers who like British walking narratives and two hander drama. Who it is not for: the pace is slow, little happens, and the argument about the truth of the source cannot be set aside while watching.