Despite all the hoohah around this film, I found it totally depressing in the same way that I did for The Full Monty or Billy Elliot.

Raynor Winn and her husband Moth are made homeless, the details of how were not fully revealed in the book or film, and so out of desperation set off on the coastal path walk around the south west of the UK. They didn’t have much money to live on, £40 a week, and were unprepared for the life, running short of water on more than one occasion. Anyone who has undertaken this type of long-distance walk or cycle knows that is essential you carry enough water to last you until the next village or town.

Anyway, details aside, Moth has a rare degenerative brain disease and is losing the use of one side of his body and relies upon frequent pain killers to help him manage through the day. Why wouldn’t you set off on a long distance walk?

As they walk he decides to stop taking the pain killers, or runs out of them, and then starts to get better and this is an uplifting part of the film. He becomes stronger and more physically capable although winter is setting in. A friend offers them a barn to live in if they do it up.

What my husband and I did, though, was try to identify the places where they stopped because we have lived in several places along the path and have walked some of it. The scenery is stunning, from the rolling hillsides in Somerset to the waves crashing on the Devon beaches and the rocky climbs in Cornwall but it wasn’t enough. The story line was not strong enough to hook us in and make us attend to the narrative rather than trying to spot places we knew.

Glen Close and Jason Isaacs play the parts of Ray and Moth well. They are believable, showing us a long term relationship that is strong but reaches crisis at several points – when the bailiffs knock on the door or when they pitch their tent in the path of the sea or preilously close to the cliff edge. The ending, however, was saccharine coated and disappointing.

We both gave the film 6/10.