“The Way,” a new feature film directed by Emilio Estevez and starring his father, Martin Sheen, will open in a limited number of theaters beginning tomorrow, with more venues being added later this month and in November.
On Aug. 29, a private screening of “The Way” was held in San Francisco. The film is set during a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostella, Spain, known as The Way of Saint James – an ancient route for pilgrims dating back to the 9th century.
The film follows the story of Thomas Avery, a successful but not particularly happy or likeable Southern California ophthalmologist, played by Martin Sheen, and his estranged son Daniel, played by Emilio Estevez.
As he is playing golf, Thomas receives a telephone call from France. The call is from a police captain, informing him that Daniel is dead. Thomas travels to a small town in Southern France to claim Daniel’s body and learns that Daniel had died in a storm in the Pyrenees as he was engaged in the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostella.
The police captain explains the significance of the Santiago pilgrimage to Thomas. As a tribute to his son, Thomas decides to complete the pilgrimage for him. As the movie progresses, Thomas’s vicarious fulfillment of Daniel’s pilgrimage gradually becomes his own.
Along the way, seemingly by chance, the bitter Thomas falls in with three other pilgrims: an apparently happy-go-lucky Dutchman named Joost, played by Yorick van Wageningen; a cynical Canadian woman, Sarah, played by Deborah Kara Unger, and a somewhat insufferable Irish writer named Jack, played by James Nesbitt.
As they live with one another during the pilgrimage, their human weaknesses, failings, and strengths are revealed. There are moments of painful honesty. Over time, their individual pilgrimages become a pilgrimage as a community.
Performances by James Nesbitt and especially Yorick van Wageningen stand out. James Nesbitt’s Jack shows significant range as well as character development. Yorick van Wageningen as Joost is excellent. Joost seems no more than a figure of fun at first, a sort of Friar Tuck, and he is, but as the pilgrimage progresses Wageningen’s portrayal shows a sensitivity and self-awareness in Joost that is unexpected. The hard-drinking, pot-smoking Dutchman is the only one of the four pilgrims to enter the Cathedral of Santiago on his knees.
Following the August screening in San Francisco, Sheen and Estevez took questions from the audience. When asked what motivated the project, the two gave a number of reasons. The family has roots in the area: Sheen’s father, to whom the movie is dedicated, was born about 80 miles from Santiago in the region of Galicia. Estevez’s son had moved to Spain and when Sheen visited him in 2003, he became acquainted with the pilgrimage.
Estevez noted that the filming meant interacting with many actual pilgrims, some of whom are shown in background shots. “They asked, ‘What are you doing? And we said, ‘We’re making a movie… do you want to be in it?’ and the answer was ‘Sure!’”
One person asked about the experience of filming in the Cathedral of Santiago. Sheen answered that, although the cathedral had previously been shown in documentaries, “The Way” is the first dramatic film to receive permission to shoot on-site.
“We spent weeks and weeks praying and lighting candles” in the hope that the bishop would allow use of the cathedral for the film, Sheen said.
When they did receive permission, they had only a 48-hour period to shoot. The scenes in the cathedral, at the end of the pilgrims’ long journey, are among the most moving in the entire film.
When asked about the Catholic presence in the film, Sheen said that the movie was primarily spiritual, not religious. He reminded the audience that Catholic means universal, and he said that the experience of the pilgrimage, which he described as “uniting the will of the spirit with the work of the flesh” is also universal.
“The pilgrimage is a walk of faith, and it is the genius of God to dwell where we would be least likely to look,” Sheen said. “The film shows that while we must walk the pilgrimage alone, we can’t help but become part of a community… on his pilgrimage Tom becomes a father, a father to the others, more than he had ever been. He becomes himself.”
One person asked about the Hollywood response. Estevez answered that there it was too early to tell, but he did not sound optimistic: “It is hard for Hollywood to get their head wrapped around a film like this… Hollywood now makes movies targeted at 16-year-old boys. They have stopped making films for adults.”
While set in the Santiago pilgrimage, “The Way,” as both Sheen and Estevez explained, is not specifically a Catholic film. Still, the movie is certain to increase awareness of the Santiago pilgrimage, and to increase the number of pilgrims. It is a refreshing depiction of man’s spiritual journey.
For more information about the film, or to find theaters that will be showing it, Click Here.
Gibbons J Cooney writes for CalCatholic.com
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