Wild

Wild

 

*** / ****

Reviewed By Sean Trolinder

 

Directed by Jean-Marc Vallee

Cast: Reese Witherspoon, Laura Dern, Thomas Sadoski, Gaby Hoffman, Keene McRae, W. Earl Brown, Kevin Rankin, Michiel Huisman, Mo McRae, Brian Van Holt

 

 

Last year, director Jean-Marc Vallee exploded onto the scene with his wildly successful Dallas Buyers Club after years of struggling to get noticed. When Matthew McConauhey and Jared Leto won Oscar for their performances, practically every performer in Hollywood wanted to work with Vallee. Instead of cashing in and making a big studio film, Vallee stuck with the indie route, directing Wild. Based off Cheryl Strayed’s memoir and adapted by Nick Hornby (author of High Fidelity and screenwriter of An Education), the film follows Cheryl (played by Reese Witherspoon) on her three month hike along the Pacific Crest Trail. At first, the audience is left to wonder why Cheryl would embark on a 1,100 mile hike, and true to Vallee’s form, he keeps the audience at a distance and allows events to unfold progressively. Like in Dallas Buyers Club, Vallee does not hit audiences with tons of information at first, and though his leisurely pace is often compared to as a “slow burn,” he does a good enough job building tension for the viewer to understand Cheryl’s physical and psychological struggles. There is no doubt that Reese Witherspoon’s control over Cheryl’s vulnerabilities help aid the character study, but perhaps the most impressive feat the film achieves is balancing the interesting backstory with the present action. Through smooth editing, I never once got lost in the time frame of the film.

The film begins in the middle, while Cheryl is standing over a cliff, attending to a busted toenail. Through a close-up, we see Cheryl’s foot bloodied, soaking the front end of her sock. While pulling the nail, her boot falls off the cliff, leading her without proper footwear to survive the wild. The first question viewers must ask is what has Cheryl done to warrant such punishment and bad luck, while the next one is why take this hike to begin with? In a way, the hike is a way for Cheryl to cleanse her soul, to rediscover herself, but perhaps the most obvious thing we learn from Cheryl’s backstory is that she has endured a series of unfortunate events.

Soon after the strange start, the film cuts back to when Cheryl begins her journey. She has a final conversation over the phone with her ex-husband, Paul (played by Thomas Sadoski), who clearly still loves her, but is rendered helpless in talking her out of making the journey through the Pacific Crest Trail. On day one, Vallee uses a voiceover of Cheryl’s subconscious, reminding her that she could quit any time she wants, and within five miles, she gives it some serious thought. When she stops for food, she figures out that she does not have the proper gas to cook with, so she will be stuck eating cold mush.

What makes Wild interesting after the first several minutes into the journey is that the great outdoors triggers flashbacks from Cheryl’s past, revealing pieces of her history and why the hike is necessary. The quick cuts and seamless transitions into the past make watching the hike durable. If Vallee had chosen to just show Cheryl hiking through the woods and mountains, the narrative would dull quickly, but the flashbacks are where the real story comes out. During many points in the film, noises and images (such as a flocking of crows, the sunrise, a copy of a James Michener book, and a fox that may or may not be physically present) lead to memories of Cheryl’s mother, Bonni (played by Laura Dern), who she claims, “Is the love of my life.” Little anecdotes of Bonni attending college at the same time as Cheryl, how she sings while cooking, and a curious replay of Bonni stretching out her arms, telling Cheryl and her brother how much she loves them, quickly intercuts with scenes from Cheryl navigating the great outdoors. Through Dern’s performance, we find out that Bonni—who was married to an abusive husband—is the perfect mother, always trying to make a negative into a positive. Even when things are tough for Cheryl in the past, Bonni encourages her to have a big heart and happiness is the most important element in life.

Even though more than half of Cheryl’s memories deal with Bonni, a few reflect on the events that lead to Cheryl’s divorce to Paul. One flashback shows Cheryl and Paul at a tattoo parlor, getting emblems of a horse inked into them (and the images of horses become prominent in the Bonni subplot, too). They claim that the horses are symbols in which they’ll remember each other by, but it also serves as a reminder of how their divorce is finalized. The flashbacks also reveal some of Cheryl’s questionable choices that led to Paul granting the divorce, some of which relates to Cheryl’s heroin addiction.

Though the psychological element of Wild is vital, the physical story about hiking brings up two interesting themes: 1) To what extent do we entrust strangers for help, and 2) How does one survive the outdoors due to changes in landscapes, seasons, and limited water? Along the journey, Cheryl inevitably meets a bunch of men she does not quite trust at first, and with good reason. Some of the hikers on the trail even admit that they do not see many women make the trek. For example, the kindness of two men—Frank (played by W. Earl Brown) and Greg (played by Kevin Rankin)—help Cheryl push through rough patches when quitting seems like a high possibility. However, during a scene when Cheryl finds a small watering hole, she runs into two creepy men who contemplate taking advantage of her, so Cheryl must figure out a way to outwit them to escape a particularly odd situation.

Another clever element about Wild is how Cheryl signs the log books at each post, often quoting famous writers like Robert Frost and Walt Whitman. By signing these logs, Cheryl develops a bit of a celebrity status amongst the other hikers, since they see the progress of a female surviving the route. Some of the hikers she runs into them claim that she is their hero, which gives her more encouragement to push on.

Wild has a ton of strengths, such as the strong performances by Witherspoon and Dern, Vallee’s direction, and the clean editing, so on a technical level it is one of the better movies of the year. On the other hand, there are a handful of scenes that seem like they should be cut and somewhat hinder the progression of the story. For instance, Cheryl tries to hitch a ride midway through the film, only to be stopped by an aspiring writer for The Hobo Times, who has a goal of getting a piece published in Harper’s. Cheryl might have experienced this in real life, but the scene comes off as clumsy, forced, and trying to be too comedic for its own good. Also, I found the whole sequence of events that take place in Oregon to be forgettable, even though about twelve minutes of the film takes place there.

Overall, Wild is an impressive follow up for Jean-Marc Vallee, who is quickly developing the reputation as an auteur and perhaps the next Lasse Hollstrom. This is Witherspoon’s best work since Walk the Line, a film that reminds audiences that she has a ton of range, despite being typecasted as just something to be looked at and admired.