 Academy Award Winner Reese Witherspoon stars in this inspirational true story from the director of Dallas Buyers Club and based on the best-selling book by Cheryl Strayed. After years of reckless behavior and being haunted by memories of her mother Bobbi (Academy Award Nominee Laura Dern), Cheryl (Witherspoon) makes a rash decision to embark on a challenging 1,100-mile solo hike across the Pacific Crest Trail. With absolutely no experience, she sets out to hike more than a thousand miles all on her own - in what becomes a remarkable journey of self-discovery and redemption that strengthens and ultimately heals her. Storyline: With the dissolution of her marriage and the death of her mother, Cheryl Strayed has lost all hope. After years of reckless, destructive behavior, she makes a rash decision. With absolutely no experience, driven only by sheer determination, Cheryl hikes more than a thousand miles of the Pacific Crest Trail, alone. Wild powerfully captures the terrors and pleasures of one young woman forging ahead against all odds on a journey that maddens, strengthen, and ultimately heals her. Written by Spencer Higham Reviewer's Note: Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman, April 1, 2015 -- Cheryl Strayed—what a slacker! The Pacific Crest Trail stretches for well over 2,600 miles, spanning an awesome wilderness that covers huge swaths of California, my home state of Oregon and Washington. And yet this obviously lazy and unmotivated woman only managed to hike a mere 1,100 miles or so, a feat which culminated in her bestselling memoir Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail, a book which Oprah famously utilized to relaunch her equally famous Book Club. Of course the above is said with tongue planted firmly in cheek, for Strayed's impressive achievement is actually manifold: not only did she manage to make it through an emotionally harrowing and physically exhausting trek, she went on to write about it with a visceral intensity that brought not just the external experience of walking through a vast wilderness completely alive, but which also illuminated a sometime fractious psychological history, a history which in fact informed Strayed's very decision to undertake the hike in the first place. Wild plays upon that dialectic between the physical world and Strayed's interior monologue in an effective and affecting manner, offering a compelling portrait of a woman "searching for herself" in a completely unlikely environment. Propelled by a fierce and determined, yet at times wonderfully vulnerable, performance by Reese Witherspoon as Strayed, Wild is part travelogue, part personal realization tale, with a slowly revelatory plot structure which patiently peels back the layers of Strayed's trouble strewn history to uncover a series of unfortunate hands dealt to the young woman, some admittedly self-inflicted, which played into her roiling emotional state. There's a brief but telling vignette that starts out Wild in a rather funny way. Cheryl has managed to make it to the top of a rather daunting mountain peak, but she's badly bruised and battered, and the damage to her body is revealed to be even worse than initially on view when she peels off her boot and sock and takes a look at a bloody and mangled foot, one with the large toenail obviously shorn from its socket and ready to be pulled off. In so doing (in a wince inducing moment), Cheryl inadvertently bumps one of her boots, which goes catapulting down the precipitous hillside into some unseen valley. Disbelievingly, Cheryl stares at the boot bouncing down the steep grade, and then she does something rather unexpected. She picks up her other boot and tosses it into the void, screaming a hearty string of expletive epithets at whatever unseen force is toying with her so callously. The fact that Cheryl chooses herself to add insult to injury (so to speak) is nonetheless an important clue into her stubborn and occasionally reactionary demeanor. Scenarist Nick Hornby and director Jean-Marc Vallée indulge in both brief bursts of montage as well as longer (though intermittent) flashback sequences to dole out information about Cheryl. She's obviously a character lost in various interior landscapes of memory, reminiscences which often collide with whatever she's going through on her hike. There are some quick snippets of Cheryl as a child (that's evidently the real daughter of Cheryl Strayed in these scenes), which introduces her sweet single mother Bobbi (Laura Dern). Another quick vignette reveals that Bobbi is trying to make a go at getting a college education well into her middle age, attending the same school as young adult Cheryl. An even later vignette tends to reveal both the pride and heartache Bobbi feels at having raised such an intelligent, if occasionally brusque and defiant, daughter. Cheryl remarks about how much more sophisticated at her age she is than Bobbi was back in the day, and Bobbi responds wistfully that that had always been her plan, though she didn't realize how much it would hurt to hear it. It's in small, almost picayune, moments like these that Wild rather miraculously reveals years of family interactions in brief, almost laconic, scenes. Other flashbacks also begin to detail Cheryl's problematic former marriage with Paul (Thomas Sadoski). A phone call between the two early in the film offers an awkward introduction to their relationship, but it's only later that it becomes clear the two were actually married. Cheryl's self chosen post-divorce surname is but one external sign of a series of behaviors she indulged in which at least contributed to the divorce. (There's a fun scene with Paul and Cheryl getting tattooed in "honor" of their divorce. That's Portlander Art Alexakis of the band Everclear as the tattoo artist.) The two main backstory elements dealing with Bobbi and Paul offer recurring snippets, while other somewhat tangential but no less meaningful information is imparted, including Cheryl's struggles with substance abuse and her sometimes contentious relationship with best friend Aimee (Gaby Hoffman). While the memories keep flooding in, the film actually moves forward chronologically through Cheryl's adventures on the Pacific Crest Trail. These elements are as anecdotal as the memories are, introducing a gaggle of at times pretty eccentric characters, but perhaps rather unexpectedly, Hornby's screenplay knits everything together in an enjoyably organic and ultimately quite meaningful way. The film has a few extremely minor stumbles along the path. While the memories finally provide a putative reason for both Cheryl's emotional breakdown and subsequent attempt to "find herself" on the trail, armchair psychologists may wish for a trifle more introspective information to have been imparted. Certainly scores of others have encountered as much trauma and as many setbacks as Cheryl without resorting to some of her self-destructive behaviors, and the film never really satisfactorily explores or explains this element. The arc with Bobbi, while ultimately emotionally devastating and obviously culled from real life, plays a bit pat at times, at least with the interstitial presentation it's afforded in the film. Finally, occasionally Vallée can't quite keep from offering pretty on the nose formulations of Cheryl's self-discovery by presenting little tidbits like her managing an imposing rock face or fording a river and then smiling to herself as if to say, "Gosh, I can succeed." These are admittedly small quibbles in what is otherwise a sterling piece of character driven drama within the context of a glorious if occasionally treacherous journey. Witherspoon has rarely been more compelling, and she brings a wonderfully self-aware wryness to the character. Dern is extremely touching as Bobbi, a woman who has taken her own less grandiose sojourn through sadness and disappointment, coming out surprisingly sanguine in the process. The supporting cast, which features a gaggle of mostly endearing characters Cheryl meets on her way, is top flight, making Wild one of the most enjoyable cinematic expeditions in recent memory. We Oregonians tend to pride ourselves on our pioneer spirit, and there's probably no finer contemporary example than that of Cheryl Strayed. Wild is an unusually compelling film, one that ping pongs rather effortlessly between its travelogue elements and the somewhat more labyrinthine journey Strayed takes through her roiling psyche. The film has a rare feel of authenticity, one that is certainly aided and abetted by riveting performances by the Oscar nominated Witherspoon and Dern. Technical merits are outstanding, and the supplemental package is extremely enjoyable. Highly recommended. [CSW] The flash backs really did give you a sense of how a daughter could feel the remorse and longing as someone who found out too late how remarkable her mother's advice and approach to life were. The mother somehow always seemed to see lemonade while her daughter saw only the lemons. The opening scene of Faust has this great line "A man sees in the world what he carries in his heart." I didn't become very emotionally attached to the characters in this movie when I first watched it. But upon later reflection the dichotomy of the philosophies became much clearer and I was able to understand the great hurt that the daughter felt even though she couldn't completely understand it, and why she needed to work it out or as they say "walk it off." If this weren't a true story, you could never believe that this ill-prepared young woman completed this adventure. I thought the movie balanced the interesting logistics of the hike with the very full human relationship story, but you have to look for it to see it. After all the real story is internal. IMDb Rating (11/28/15): 7.6/10 from 346,031 users
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