Review of Wild (2014) by Therocksbarney — 15 Jan 2015

I remember when I was watching “Wild” that I suddenly realised that I wasn’t walking beside the films protagonist Cheryl Strayed, but was in fact watching her being played by Reese Witherspoon. But this wasn’t just because of how immersive the cinema screen is and how it made me feel like I was experiencing Strayed’s story first hand, but it was also how, using Strayed’s hike as the guide leading us through the film, “Wild” uses Strayed’s internal monologue as a way of letting the audience see what led to Strayed to embark on such a terrific feat. This fluent style matches that of the book the film is based on, “Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail”. It was also Witherspoon’s performance that drew me in to the film, and by combining that with the inevitable landscape shots that are going to feature in a film like this, I suddenly realised that I had been walking beside Strayed/Witherspoon as the film had gone on.

Strayed’s story is tragic, yet from that spouts inspiration. But “Wild” doesn’t do it in a way where that is clear, in fact Strayed frequently asks herself what on earth she is thinking doing this. Instead, again by sticking to the style of its source material, “Wild” leaves you realising a day or two later that the past isn’t something that is best to discard and forget about, but is instead something that we should take on board and use as a way to become a better person. Again, something that isn’t so obvious about “Wild” is how you find yourself rooting for Strayed, but not in the sense of how I was just about resisting the urge to scream out in the cinema as if she was some sort of superwoman, but instead in a way where Strayed genuinely, and deservedly, had my sympathy.

Reece Witherspoon is one of many people to thank for this. She is brilliant in “Wild” and it’s great to see her in something rather than, what I thought was her recent work, “This Means War”, that cringing spy flick where Chris Pine and Tom Hardy fight over her. Yet what “This Means War” can be thanked for in regards to “Wild” is how Witherspoon doesn’t leave that comedy behind and where there is a chance for humour, she takes it, again leading me to laugh out loud, for example in a scene where she is mistaken for a hobo. But then, once I’d finished laughing, I’d be left with an important question about Cheryl Strayed. Is she homeless? These sort of questions give Strayed your sympathy, and deservedly so. Cheryl Strayed, for her story, and Reese Witherspoon, doing justice for Strayed in regards to her story, can both be thanked in regards to this.

We can also thank the film’s director, Jean-Marc Vallée, following on from his previous effort “Dallas Buyers Club”. Whereas I didn’t really like his previous film, I feel that “Wild” was better suited to him. Although there is that same pale shade over the camera as there was in “Dallas Buyers Club”, Vallée captures some fantastic landscape shots and what’s important to note is how it’s not just the scenery that makes them truly fantastic, but it’s the subject of them, Strayed/Witherspoon, that does so. Where there is a view of some snowy mountains, we can see a figure making her way down them. Vallée does this in a different way in “Dallas Buyers Club”, and it explains why Matthew McConaughey in that film and Reese Witherspoon in this get so much attention for their respective roles. This makes it difficult for supporting actors and actresses to get some of the limelight, but again another strong performance by Laura Dern (playing Barbara “Bobbi” Grey, Cheryl’s Mother) manages to take some of it, though not as much as Jared Leto did in “Dallas Buyers Club” last year. But I suppose it is difficult for Dern to take some of the spotlight in a film that does focus on one woman’s struggle, whereas “Dallas Buyers Club” focused on that of a whole community.

“Wild” is ultimately a great film and its story, propelled forward by Reece Witherspoon, who by the end of the film I found to be synonymous with Strayed, is both tragic and terrific. Vallée can be thanked for this too. At one point in the film Witherspoon/Strayed comments how she feels more alone at home than out here in the wild. This captures what “Wild” is as a film, and although it doesn’t teach you anything directly, it rather encourages you to look at what Strayed did and to try and not find yourself in that position.