There are movies made all the time that participants in front and behind the camera call “a labor of love.” It’s never been as true as it is for The Way, a gentle and moving new independent comedy written and directed by Emilio Estevez.

“A heartfelt project,
scrappy and engaging”

Now at the truly advanced age of 49, Emilio must be tired as hell of still being referred to as “Martin Sheen’s other son” or “Charlie Sheen’s brother,” or being remembered best as a straight arrow in a John Hughes movie thirty years ago. (Okay, we admit it: we loved Breakfast Club. Thirty years ago.) But now he’s a grown man, with a grown son all his own, and Estevez has turned the potentially burdensome reputation of his family into something rather special: The Way.

Emilio not only wrote and directed The Way; he costars in it, too…alongside his father Martin Sheen, who plays–oddly enough–his father. The story of a prosperous American businessman, stuck on a unintentional pilgrimage along the Camino de Santiago, has been called “A heartfelt project, scrappy and engaging,” “a thoughtful, moving personal adventure,” and a “uniquely memorable experience.” And equally important, it involves–in one way or another–four different generations of the Estevez family.

In many recent interviews, Emilio tells how he decided to do this story, in part, to be closer to his own son, Ramon–who became a production assistant and later, an executive producer on the film. He cast his own father, who just happened to be an award-winning actor, to play the lead…and the sojourn of the actor and the real-life location of the film itself ends almost on the doorstep of the tiny Spanish village where Martin’s father, Emilio’s grandfather was born. And now, long after the film is completed. Emilio and his Dad are on a cross-country bus tour, in a bus of their own design, visiting cities and town where the movie should be playing, running it a couple of times in each venue in their bus’ own studio, and generally spreading the family-word in a way nobody else could.

It’s not a perfect film–far from it; after all it’s a family-made film. It’s quirky and more than a little clichéd. But it is brimming with heart and honest affection, and carries a message we could all stand to learn. You can watch the trailer here, see a clip here, and learn more about their remarkable cross-country promotional bus tour on their equally remarkable site right here. Or you could go completely crazy and just go to your local art house and see it for yourself, front to back. But for all its flaws, it’s certainly the best thing you’ll find in a movie theater this week (or month or season). So whatever you do, don’t lose The Way.

Photo courtesy: The Way The Movie-Facebook Page