It is, therefore, a tribute to the star power of Redford and Nolte that A Walk in the Woods is far from a tedious slog. She's barely heard from him over the course of his trip because A Walk in the Woods seems to exist within some indeterminate time warp in which everyone drives a late-model car but no one owns a cellphone. Thompson's character returns briefly at the end, welcoming Bryson back after three months - and apparently surprised to see the old boy still alive and kicking. As Bryson's wife, her sole narrative purpose is to try to talk her wimpy hubby out of setting off on the trail in the first place. Worst of all, A Walk in the Woods wastes the talents of Thompson. (Now that I think of it, I don't believe they ever paid their hotel bill, either.) Then the script abruptly sends the guys scrambling back to the trail - hurling their packs out a rear window as an angry local pounds on their door - without so much as a tender goodbye between Redford and Steenburgen.
Of course, Bryson is devoted to his wife (she is, after all, played by Emma Thompson), but that only makes the sweet exchanges between these two more charming. We're left similarly suspended when the pair check into a small-town motel, where obvious sparks fly between Bryson and the owner, played by the ever-fetching Mary Steenburgen. We spend the rest of the movie wondering when they will encounter her again. Early on they fall in with an incessantly chatty loner - the always delightful Kristen Schaal - but the boys conspire to lose her by running ahead, then hiding as she passes by. It's hard to imagine him reaching the next rock, much less the next state line.īryson and Katz start their journey at the trail's southern terminus, Springer Mountain in Georgia.
But Nolte, who's five years younger and plays Bryson's traveling companion, Stephen Katz, could easily pass for Redford's father. Nearing 80, Redford is in remarkably good shape, and it's easy to imagine him giving the trail a run for its money. Redford plays a rather fictionalized version of Bryson, who in his mid-40s attempted to walk the length of the roughly 2,160-mile Appalachian Trail. Robert Redford and Nick Nolte take a stroll on the Appalachian Trail in 'A Walk in the Woods'
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