Review of Wild (2014) by Netflic — 28 Dec 2014

This movie is based on a popular auto-biographical book with the same name written by Cheryl Strayed. After her mother got cancer and passed away at 45, Cheryl got depressed and her life was in downward spiral – cheating on and divorcing her devoted and loving husband, sleeping around, using drugs etc. Whether she was thinking how to extricate herself from this predicament, or not, but one day she bought a book “Hiking the PCT trail” and decided to do it, without prior experience, ALONE.

You put yourself in a physically demanding situation day after day, and it will clear your mind and clean your soul.

As she comes to the end of her 1,000 miles journey, she is ready to start a new life. It might sound trite, but anybody who’s ever hiked a long distance will attest that this is true – the healing power of the beauty of the surroundings, of the camaraderie with other hikers, and of the clear goal.

Reese Witherspoon does a nice job playing Cheryl, cinematography is quite decent, but I think the movie focused too much on what brought Cheryl to the sorry state of her situation, and not why the long and exhausting journey helped. Maybe because there were too many flashbacks of Cheryl's life, and it to some extend ruined the flow of the movie.