A Family Affair: Father and Son Martin Sheen and Emilio Estevez Re-Release Classic Film “The Way” to Help Americans Reset From the Pandemic

The 2011 film, “The Way,” found its way back to theaters nationwide this week. The film follows a grieving father, played by Martin Sheen, on a journey overseas to recover the body of his estranged son, played by Emilio Estevez, who died while traveling the “El Camino de Santiago” and decides to take the pilgrimage himself. Estevez, who also wrote and directed the film, says now is the perfect time for the movie’s re-release.

“I think that people are looking for something that was sort of heightened during the pandemic, when people began to hear the birds again and smell clean air, despite the horror of the pandemic,” he said. “They wanted to touch that sense of the sacred that exists in all of us. They wanted to find a way, as I often say, to unite the will of the spirit with the work of the flesh, and that’s what pilgrimage is all about. You know, the flesh is walking, the spirit is listening, and they come together, and they form community with all the other pilgrims in front, behind, and right and left of you…but it is a journey inside as well as a physical journey outside.”

You can read Emilio and Martin’s full interview with The Washington Post here.