The Way

You could walk the 800km Camino de Santiago pilgrimage from the French Pyrenees into Spain. Or get the two-hour-plus version with this soft-focus Christian-values film starring Martin Sheen and directed by his son Emilio Estevez. Like the real thing, it goes on and on, and just when you think you can’t take any more insufferably trite good intentions, it keeps on going.

Sheen plays a doctor who makes the pilgrimage after his son is killed trekking the first leg. Every step he takes, he makes a new friend, each one broken and looking for meaning. The acting is perfectly serviceable: Estevez appears as Sheen’s dead son; James Nesbitt is a hack travel writer. Spot the angry, feminist-looking woman and you know the abortion storyline (no Christian movie is complete without one) is coming. I was half-hoping the family black sheep Charlie might show up. Presumably he will take more fixing than is possible with endless montages accompanied by Christian rock songs with catchy lines like: ‘How ’bout remembering your divinity?’