Gillian Anderson & Jason Isaacs Take 'The Salt Path'

Most films on housing insecurity, poverty, and homelessness follow the same playbook. People in bad situations make poor life choices and end up on the street; their inner strength and burning will to live help propel them through hardship until they pull themselves up and find their way back to some semblance of respectability and joy with a family, found or otherwise. Then there’s The Salt Path, which began life as a memoir written by Raynor Winn with the encouragement of her daughter. After initially being optioned for a stage show, the book was turned into a film, hitting theaters in the spring of 2025.

The Salt Path chronicles the six-month journey Raynor and her husband Moth took when their deteriorating health conditions and job loss led to eviction, and the couple decided to walk The South West Coast Path, which locals call “The Salt Path.” The National Trail is England’s longest waymarked long-distance footpath, running 630 miles (1,014 km) from Minehead, Somerset, down the west coast to Poole Harbour, Dorset. Gillian Anderson (The Crown) and Jason Isaacs (Archie) were cast as Raynor and Moth when the project was still a stage production but stayed with it when it changed mediums.

Anderson says the project has changed the way she views homelessness and what’s known in the U.K. as “sleeping rough.” “It changed my perspective,” she said in an interview when the project debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival.