Review by John P. Harvey.
Australian Bill Bennett’s published 2013 memoir of walking the Camino de Santiago has now become a movie under Bennett’s direction. The Way, My Way shows a fairly self-absorbed filmmaker named Bill Bennett (played by Chris Haywood) whose wife, Jen (Jennifer Cluff, Bennett’s real wife and the movie’s co-producer), hopes that when he completes the Camino she will no longer have to apologise for him!
Beginning in Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port and heading westward over 800 kilometres to the grand Cathedral de Santiago de Compostela, Bill begins his journey with three others. Upon meeting them he’s immediately thrown off balance when the two men of the group, Balazs (Balazs Orban, playing himself) and Laszlo (Laszlo Vass, also playing himself), give him an enthusiastic hug and the sole woman, Rosa (played by Laura Lakshmi), comments that he looks older than his Facebook photo.
But Bill’s character is essentially unassailable, and he commences the walk fiercely determined to complete it without support of any kind despite a knee that is clearly in serious trouble.
What we hear that Bill learns as he progresses along the route is that the Camino presents miracles and changes people. The walk is obviously a challenge, but those undertaking it form a community of sorts that includes even self-centric know-it-alls. And toward the end, Bill has heard some confidences and offered some quiet philosophical reflections (principally to Cristina, played by Pia Thunderbolt), thus becoming part of that community.
Though it’s fiction based on fact, the film has in some respects a documentary flavour. This doesn’t detract from it at all, and Bill’s frank confession that he doesn’t know why he’s doing the walk adds to its emotional authenticity.
The film comes across as a little disconnected in parts, both in its depiction of Bill’s internal journey and in its external sequence as a road journey. We’re given to understand, for instance, that Bill has undergone an epiphany, though how that occurred is left somewhat to the imagination; and some major intervals on the journey are punctuated with little more than a road sign. But the film’s strengths include the variety of pilgrims’ experiences on the trail, the care of those undertaking the pilgrimage for others, and the humour that underlies the little and not-so-little obstacles that confront Bill as he perseveres to complete the walk.