This isn’t the easiest film to like. A quasi documentary based on the memoir by writer director Bill Bennett about his pilgrimage along ‘the way’ to Santiago de Compostela.

It casts Chris Haywood as Bill but surrounds him with real people from Bennett’s travels. This isn’t immediately apparent and for a while the acting seems stilted and deliberately hammy. Haywood’s Bill is also a rather two dimensional curmudgeon of the ‘grumpy old men’ ilk that now seems dated.

As he harangues wait staff and lectures other pilgrims, you feel a bit embarrassed to be his compatriot. This is a long slow walk of redemption though so Bill as writer director is giving himself a redemptive arc, albeit one that seems lacking in objectivity. It feels like he sees himself as essentially heroic, pushing on through pain and a gammy knee, dispensing wisdom picked up from other travellers and single-handedly making a depressed female traveller forgive herself and believe in miracles.

Those non-actors – the real people along the way – are far more humble and interesting. The best moments are when they monologue as to why they were there. It feels like the two female travellers were actors – too shiny and perfect – and Bill’s long suffering wife, Jennifer Cluff, plays herself, perhaps cathartically able to scream at his doppelgänger and tell him he’s an idiot.

The star is ‘the way’ and you get some sense of the beauty and the emotion. I suspect there are more compelling films out there about it though.