BILL Bryson has written great books about the English language, science and travel in whatever nation he happened to be living in when the Muse tapped him on the shoulder. One of them is about Australia.

In 1998, after returning to the US from living 20 years in Britain, he wrote “A Walk in the Woods” (re-published in 2002 in a single volume with “Walkabout”). The impetus was a need he felt to recharge his batteries and rediscover his identity by walking the Appalachian Trail, which runs approximately 3500km from Springer Mountain in Georgia and Mt Katahdin in Maine.  

From Bryson’s book, Ken Kwapis has made a splendid-looking, agreeably funny, American-to-its boot-straps film, its only heavy content the walkers’ backpacks. Bryson asked all the men he knew if they’d care to accompany him on the walk. None did. Except a buddy who arose from the deep recesses of memory about youthful excesses and who needed a diversion. In the book and the film, he’s called Stephen Katz.

So here are two actors, Robert Redford (born 1936) as Bryson and Nick Nolte (born 1941) as Katz, setting forth on a bushwalk that might daunt hikers born four decades later. There’s no heroics about it. There’s a lot of laughs, some of which embody a certain amount of what looks like contrivance (I’ve not read the book, so can’t comment further).

And before the adventure begins, the best part. Emma Thompson plays Catherine Bryson, watching the father of her children set forth into the wilderness. The two men carry the plot’s major load. The landscape plays a significant role. Kristen Schaal plays Mary Ellen, hiker with a vengeance, motor-mouth like Niagara Falls. Me, I wanted Bryson to get home for more of Emma.

At Dendy, Capitol 6 and Palace Electric