Review of Wild (2014) by Mike N — 12 Mar 2015

Jean-Marc Vallee's remarkable follow-up to the Best Picture nominee Dallas Buyers Club undoubtedly deserved the same recognition. The powerful story of Cheryl Strayed is not only a far more directorially mature to the McConaughey anchored AIDS drama, it delivers an absolutely transformative performance from Reese Witherspoon that sets it far apart from the "chick Into the Wild" that many took it to be from the trailer.

Poorly marketed, Wild is not what you expect it to be, no matter what you expect. It's a story of survival, where the struggle is more internal than external, where its theme is both universal and yet fundamentally female.

It's brilliant incorporation of pop music and stunning nature views help move you through the emotional journey of Cheryl, a lost soul drifting through life in a daze until she decides to put herself on a real path and see it through, Most stories, like Vallee's last film, are about people who unwittingly find themselves in circumstances that, in the end, change them for the better.

They just look in the mirror one day and see a new them. Not Cheryl. She knows the person who will be at the other end of that trail, and its her determination and tenacity that drives her to finish the journey, to make it to the end, to become the person she intends to be.

Trust not the trailers, and get your hands on Wild, a profoundly moving portrait of the drive to save yourself.