The American academic Brené Brown has written and spoken extensively on the subject of the human experience. At the heart of her wisdom is that connection is a significant driving force for human beings. She says, “Connection is why we’re here; it is what gives purpose and meaning to our lives”. Director Owen Ward’s The Two of Us, is an exploration of this driving force.
A London-based barber, actor and comedian feels trapped in his life. He decides to start afresh by walking the length of the UK, from Land’s End to John O’ Groats – 603 miles as the crow flies. He’s joined on day 25 of his journey in Worcester by Tim Edwards, a father grieving the loss of his daughter, Elle, who was killed during the Wallasey pub shooting, in Merseyside on Christmas Eve 2022.
The connection between the two men reminds us of the serendipitous nature of life, specifically how relationships exist in a direct and indirect context. What’s interesting is how this burgeoning friendship emerges out of rejection, after John first declined Tim’s offer to accompany him. John had his reasons, which he articulated well and with honesty.
This section of the documentary introduces and plays with the adage, “no man is an island”. Even for John, who was determined to walk alone and experience this feeling of freedom he desperately craved, it was never meant to be. He was able to experience that feeling, but the story of his journey is one about human connection – not only the people he and Tim met along the way, but Brian Conlon, who provided logistical support for the first 200 miles, by driving the camper van that would provide John shelter at the end of each day.
Conlon feels like a footnote in the larger story, but his role and the personal circumstances that forced him to step away, were significant. Taking over from Brian, Tim evolves John’s introverted and reclusive odyssey into something that it would never have been.
Friendship and the physical exertion help Tim to manage the pain that has been eating away at him, pushing him into dangerous behavioural patterns, specifically alcohol. One of the ideas that emerges early on in the documentary is the need to escape familiar surroundings. However, what’s striking is the way the walk to John O’ Groats can be interpreted as a spiritual reconnection with the memory of Elle, sparked by earlier home video footage of father and daughter on a hike in Snowdonia.
The way in which The Two of Us unfolds, plays with the themes of escape and distance in a paradoxical way. And as much as The Two of Us is about connection, it’s also about vulnerability. Tim is a character who can bare his soul and yet still preserve the privacy or personal intimacy of the moment. Perhaps this is because there are those thoughts and feelings that he will never be able to articulate.
In one sequence, Tim remembers stepping inside a church to confront God. It’s a powerful moment that will resonate with the audience, because if we haven’t had cause to ask why and how God could have forsaken us and our loved ones, it’s a thought many of us have wrestled with. This is a moment where you sense Tim deciding to let us in. And it’s a significant and privileged moment for the director and his audience, who experience another human being sharing their vulnerability and trust.
The Two of Us bleeds with emotional intelligence. This encourages viewers to be more open-minded about anger. Instead, through Tim, it can be empathically recontextualised as a healthy, understandable and relatable emotion.
Ward effectively places us inside the walk, as if we were alongside John and Tim. He does this through archival video footage and candid interviews, in which they share their memories of the experience. The film exists in both the past and the present, which becomes an important theme. Ward is not only exploring the driving force of human connection but the intimate relationships of past, present and future, that are locked in an eternal dance. While we may heal and move forward, we are a shaped by where we’ve been and what we’ve experienced. In hindsight, The Two of Us is about the quest to live in peace with our memories.
The Two of Us premieres at Raindance 2025, which takes place from June 18th to 27th.
