"A Walk in the Woods starts promisingly, and hilariously,

with Bryson hawking a boxed set of his books on Boston television. He’s confronted with the kind of interviewer who mistakenly thinks he deserves to be the center of attention as an ace conversationalist. Redford long ago mastered a witty version of appearing dumbstruck. It’s the perfect response to this wrong-way raconteur (played with gusto by Randall Newsome) who devalues Bryson’s travel writing by quoting Noel Coward song lyrics (“Why do the wrong people travel, travel, travel / When the right people stay back home?”). He even spouts details of Bryson’s biography—especially his two-decade residence in England—as if the writer were a fugitive or an anti-American expatriate.  

 It’s a pungent scene."

                                                                           Film Comment