Review: Wild

The true story of Cheryl Strayed (Reese Witherspoon), who after losing both her marriage and herself to years of reckless behaviour, decides to make a change. In order to find the woman that her mother thought she had raised, Cheryl embarks on a hiking expedition along the US Pacific Crest Trail. Somewhat prepared (in theory at least), but on her own and with zero experience, she will battle the elements and lingering memories of her loving mother (Laura Dern). The tragic death of the latter, was a large part of why Cheryl embarked on such self-destructive behaviour in the first place. Gaby Hoffmann plays Cheryl’s best friend, W. Earl Brown plays a farmer, and Cliff De Young plays a much older, more experienced hiker she meets along the way.

 

I was kept completely at arm’s length by Sean Penn’s “Into the Wild” because I found it to be the true story of a careless, thoughtless, ill-prepared idiot who selfishly went on a journey to supposedly ‘find himself’ when simply investing in a mirror should’ve put an end to that search. I was thus sceptical when approaching a similarly themed, real-life story of a trek both external and internal with this 2014 flick directed by Jean-Marc Vallee (“The Young Victoria”, “Dallas Buyers Club”) and scripted by Nick Hornby (“About a Boy”, “High Fidelity”, “An Education”) from the book by the real-life Cheryl Strayed. Thankfully, this proves more “127 Hours” than “Into the Wild”, and is quite a strong film. If you’re gonna make a movie about ‘self-discovery’ through arduous physical journey, this is how you do it.

 

Instead of the seemingly thoughtless and arrogant character in “Into the Wild”, Reese Witherspoon’s aptly christened Cheryl Strayed has legitimately lost her way, and now she’s going on a physical journey to find the person she was before all the trouble started. I still don’t get this whole idea of someone needing to ‘find’ themselves, but this woman isn’t just arrogantly saying ‘fuck it’ to modernity and responsibility, she’s broken and needs to fix herself. I can put up with that far easier than the situation in “Into the Wild” where the selfish dickhead burned all of his ID like a moron. I mean, at least Cheryl prepared for her journey, even if she perhaps didn’t prepare enough. I know I shouldn’t turn this entire review into a comparison with “Into the Wild”, but the basic plot and title similarities do make it hard. The main reason this one works and the earlier one didn’t is pretty simple: I wanted Cheryl to find whatever she was looking for. She has clearly lost her way, whereas the guy from “Into the Wild” simply needed to invest in a mirror to find himself. Your heart breaks for Cheryl Strayed, whereas the other guy was a dumb arse who got himself into a whole mess of trouble for no good reason, because he was arrogant and ill-prepared.

 

Reese Witherspoon is another key to the film’s success, proving yet again what a versatile and strong actress she is. She also hasn’t aged a day in 20 years, if you ask me. She’s got a charismatic and innately loveable quality to her, but with an intelligence, strength, and slightly dark edge to her that has kept her from becoming just a romantic comedy actress, which for at time looked quite possible. I also think Vallee is to be commended for giving a rather tactile, tangible quality to the central character’s external journey. Pretty early on in the film you really do as an audience member feel the toll that the heavy backpack takes on Cheryl’s rather small frame. It proves an ordeal to even pick the damn thing up in the first place. It sets you up for the rest of the journey, you wonder just how in the hell such a tiny young woman is gonna make it to the end. That, of course, is probably deliberate in making the audience seem like the fellow travellers and other assorted (and mostly male) characters Cheryl meets who seem to doubt she has it in her to complete her trek. It’s very cleverly done. Either that or I’m just a sexist pig, one of the two. I also thought it was clever casting to get W. Earl Brown to play a farmer who seems outwardly sleazy, but turns out to be quite alright. It once again plays into the sexist notion that women are potential victims unable to take care of themselves getting into dangerous situations with sleazy men, but it also plays into the idea that you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. Less effective is a somehow Oscar-nominated Laura Dern as Cheryl’s loving mother. She’s seen entirely in flashbacks, and snippets at that. I’m pretty sure Dame Judi Dench had more screen time in her Oscar-winning cameo in “Shakespeare in Love”. It’s good, though to see former child actress Gaby Hoffmann and a surprisingly pudgy Cliff De Young on screen again in similarly small roles. I actually really liked the cast of characters Cheryl encountered on her trek. They seemed more organic to the story than the characters encountered in “Into the Wild”. Here they seem like a little community of their own, and quite supportive of one another.

 

A great showcase for the always excellent Reese Witherspoon, this is one of the better films of its type. With genuinely sympathetic characters and Vallee’s ability to get you to feel the arduousness and aching pain Cheryl has to endure on her trek, it’s pretty effective stuff, maybe even a little moving.

 

Rating: B