| Director | Emilio Estevez |
|---|---|
| Genre | drama film |
| Runtime | 121 min |
| Country | Spain, United States |
| Box office | $13.9 million |
Thomas Avery is an American ophthalmologist from Ventura, California, who goes to France following the death of his estranged adult son, Daniel, killed in the Pyrenees during a storm while walking the Camino de Santiago (the Way of St. James), a Christian pilgrimage route to the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Galicia, Spain. Tom's purpose is initially to retrieve his son's body. However, in a combination of grief and homage to his son, Tom decides to walk the ancient spiritual trail where his son died, taking Daniel's ashes with him.
While walking the Camino, Tom meets other people, all looking for greater meaning in their lives. He reluctantly falls in with three other pilgrims in particular. Joost is an overweight man from Amsterdam who says he is walking the route to lose weight to get ready for his brother's wedding and also so that his wife will desire him again. He is a friendly extrovert who is the first to start walking with Tom. Sarah is a Canadian fleeing an abusive husband, who says she is walking the pilgrimage to quit smoking. Jack is an Irish travel writer who when younger had desires to be a great author like William Butler Yeats or James Joyce but never wrote the novel he dreamed of. He is the last to join the quartet and has been suffering from "writer's block". As the pilgrims travel the Camino, they occasionally meet and talk with other pilgrims—two Frenchmen, a young Italian, and Father Frank, an elderly priest from New York. Tom occasionally has visions of Daniel alive and smiling among other people. Tom starts out the journey being cold to his fellow pilgrims, but over the course of their journey he eventually opens up to them.
On the pilgrimage, the group experiences challenges, such as when a young Romani steals Tom's backpack containing his son's ashes. Although the thief escapes, his father drags him back to Tom to return the pack, with embarrassed apologies and an offer in compensation to attend a Romani street party in the evening.
After the group arrives at Santiago de Compostela, Tom is ultimately accompanied to Muxía by the other three members. There, he scatters the remainder of Daniel's ashes in the Atlantic Ocean.
With Daniel's backpack on his back, Tom is shown happily setting out on another journey, this time in Morocco.