In The Salt Path, Gillian Anderson plays Raynor Winn, whose 2018 memoir documented her and her husband Moth’s hike along the 630-mile South West Coast Path, which stretches from Minehead in Somerset to Poole Harbour in Dorset. Played here by Jason Isaacs, Moth had been diagnosed with corticobasal degeneration (or CBD), a rare and progressive neurodegenerative disease. Then, the very same week, the Winns lost their home. It’s a story of extreme choices in the face of extreme circumstances.
It’s those circumstances, and those circumstances only, that we see etched on Anderson’s face. It’s the shame and exhaustion of someone whose security net has been ripped from under their feet in a way they never could have imagined – who went from living blissfully on a family farm with two kids off at university, to having an elderly man smacking at the side of her tent and screaming that it’s “disgusting” to be camping out so close to the public path. The actor presents those emotions studiously. As does Isaacs, who has the added responsibility of sensitively reflecting how Moth’s CBD fluctuates, the ebb and flow of trembling hands and stiff muscles.
