2014 | Dir. Jean-Marc Vallée | 120 Minutes
"God is a ruthless bitch."
Based on her memoir Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail, the film chronicles Cheryl Strayed's solitary hike through the Mojave Desert in 1995. As her journey continues on the PCT, facing danger is various forms, Strayed recalls various formative events of her life. With brief visions of the past and extended flashbacks running through the entire narrative, the film jumps from Stayed's time on the trail to her divorce, her debauched youth, and to her mother's slow death from cancer.
Reese Witherspoon brings amazing emotional range to her portrayal of Strayed. She spends a significant amount of screen time alone with a gigantic backpack in the outdoors, weathered in the present narrative by nature, and weathered in the flashback narrative by life itself. Witherspoon's performance is brutal and, above all, honest.
Laura Dern is a ray of light as Strayed's mother, believable in her portrayal of a remarkably selfless woman who remained positive, leaving an abusive husband and doing her best raise her children with unconditional love. Appearing in memories and as a hallucination on Strayed's hike, Dern's presence permeates through the entire picture, running in stark contrast to Strayed's negative outlook on life.
Director Jean-Marc Vallée achieves an admirable feat, intercutting the harsh realities of life with scenes of profound natural beauty. The film itself is quite beautiful, shot and edited in a dreamlike fashion, featuring Witherspoon's voiceover offering a glimpse into Strayed's thought process with quotes from literature and song lyrics left by Strayed in trail logs appearing onscreen. A film like this often runs the risk of coming off disingenuous and schmaltzy but Vallée's direction and Witherspoon's performance transcend these common flaws. Wild is a film about survival on the trail, survival in life, and, ultimately, about moving on.
FRAGMENTS
- The real life Cheryl Strayed makes a cameo appearance as the woman who drops Witherspoon off at the start of the film (Vanity Fair)
- Pleasanly surprised to hear hints of DJ Shadow's "You Can't Go Home Again" come up at various key points in the film though the full song never really plays
- Do people still casually ask for Snapple or has that come and gone with the '90s?
