In 1995, Cheryl Strayed hiked one thousand one hundred miles on the Pacific Crest Trail, travelling through the Mojave Desert and finishing up on the border of Washington State, on a voyage of self discovery, attempting to make sense of a life that had been destroyed by grief and addiction. It is an incredible tale of endurance and conquering your demons that became the basis for her 2012 memoir Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail, and now Dallas Buyers Club director Jean-Marc Valée puts his own stamp on the story, with Reece Witherspoon putting in a startlingly brave lead performance.
Stripped of any Hollywood polish, and as raw as the wilderness Strayed calls home for her time on the PCT, Wild is an inspirational and emotional journey that only the coldest and lifeless of robots will fail to connect with. Thrown into the deep end, much like Strayed herself, the audience join her just as she begins her journey, with no context given as to why she finds herself in this place in her life. Valée keeps things as simple and as pared back as he can (though he really should have thought twice about adding the poorly CGI'd fox), treating us to some exquisitely shot scenery as Strayed treks her way through several states and markedly different terrains. Through a narrative structure that dips in and out of key moments in her life out of order, we are drip fed her motivations as her journey progresses, and by the end, we have a much fuller portrait that what we started with (though at times, especially in the home stretch, character development seems rushed and happens for the sake of happening). This approach in storytelling may be jarring at first, but soon we find our groove, and the flashbacks, given context as Strayed's memories conjured up by specific aspects of her journey, begin to inform the story in interesting ways. It's here that Witherspoon gets most of her human interaction, with her time on the trail a lonely affair punctuated by a handful of brief encounters with fellow hikers and locals, the rest of the movie finding the actress playing off against the vast nothingness, her inner most thoughts providing the narration as we go. It's an incredibly strong performance, one of the best and bravest of her career, as she takes over every frame, slowly fleshing out the initially blank slate. It's a strikingly real, admittedly working better when she is on her own, wearing the toll her journey is taking like a second skin. It provides Wild with much of its power as her emotions bubble up from deep inside her unfettered.
There isn't much in the way of co-stars to do, save for Laura Dern as Cheryl's mother, who, in her very brief scenes, makes an incredible impression on the audience, playing down a role that in any other take on this story could have just been filled with empty sentiment. The rest of the cast, while performing admirably really just feel like they are wheeled out to fill their roles then relegated to the back for when, and if, they are needed again. It would have been much more of a problem if Witherspoon's wasn't so strong, and she pulls the movie along on that strength alone.
A unique and compelling retelling of an incredible true life story, Witherspoon's brave central performance is where Wild really shines.
Stripped of any Hollywood polish, and as raw as the wilderness Strayed calls home for her time on the PCT, Wild is an inspirational and emotional journey that only the coldest and lifeless of robots will fail to connect with. Thrown into the deep end, much like Strayed herself, the audience join her just as she begins her journey, with no context given as to why she finds herself in this place in her life. Valée keeps things as simple and as pared back as he can (though he really should have thought twice about adding the poorly CGI'd fox), treating us to some exquisitely shot scenery as Strayed treks her way through several states and markedly different terrains. Through a narrative structure that dips in and out of key moments in her life out of order, we are drip fed her motivations as her journey progresses, and by the end, we have a much fuller portrait that what we started with (though at times, especially in the home stretch, character development seems rushed and happens for the sake of happening). This approach in storytelling may be jarring at first, but soon we find our groove, and the flashbacks, given context as Strayed's memories conjured up by specific aspects of her journey, begin to inform the story in interesting ways. It's here that Witherspoon gets most of her human interaction, with her time on the trail a lonely affair punctuated by a handful of brief encounters with fellow hikers and locals, the rest of the movie finding the actress playing off against the vast nothingness, her inner most thoughts providing the narration as we go. It's an incredibly strong performance, one of the best and bravest of her career, as she takes over every frame, slowly fleshing out the initially blank slate. It's a strikingly real, admittedly working better when she is on her own, wearing the toll her journey is taking like a second skin. It provides Wild with much of its power as her emotions bubble up from deep inside her unfettered.
There isn't much in the way of co-stars to do, save for Laura Dern as Cheryl's mother, who, in her very brief scenes, makes an incredible impression on the audience, playing down a role that in any other take on this story could have just been filled with empty sentiment. The rest of the cast, while performing admirably really just feel like they are wheeled out to fill their roles then relegated to the back for when, and if, they are needed again. It would have been much more of a problem if Witherspoon's wasn't so strong, and she pulls the movie along on that strength alone.
A unique and compelling retelling of an incredible true life story, Witherspoon's brave central performance is where Wild really shines.
