Wild (2014): Worthwhile Journey

Wild is the movie version of Cheryl Strayed’s best-selling memoir. It’s an adventure story about the author’s solo eleven hundred mile hike during the summer of 1995, when she was 26. Except that the real story is less about backpacking than about her journey through a tangled inner wilderness of sorrow, confusion, and aspiration. The book was subtitled From Lost To Found On The Pacific Crest Trail, which neatly summarizes the allegorical nature of this young woman’s odyssey. 

When Cheryl was 22, her mother was diagnosed with incurable lung cancer, and within a couple months she was dead. Turns out that Mom was the love of Cheryl’s life and the glue that held everything together. She became, in her word, very ‘loose” in the world, literally and figuratively. Her family moorings were gone.  Her biological father had disappeared when she was very young. Her stepfather “morphed from the person I considered my dad into a man I only occasionally recognized. My two siblings scattered in their grief, in spite of my efforts to hold us together, until I gave up and scattered as well.”  As she describes in her book, and as concisely depicted in this remarkable movie, without these moorings, Cheryl degenerated – becoming sexually promiscuous, drinking too much, doing hard drugs, abandoning her marriage.  She wasn’t just drifting, she was sinking.

To get away, Cheryl eventually seized on the idea of an extended, solo hike on the Pacific Crest Trail, which stretches some 2600 miles from the Mexican border to Canada. In so doing, she committed herself to an extreme test of her physical endurance, personal will, courage and self-reliance, and an expedition that forced her to be alone with herself for the better part of three and a half months.     

The narrative unfolds as a story of the hike, interesting and sometimes harrowing in itself, with flashbacks illustrating Cheryl’s thoughts and recollections along the way, while conveniently filling in her backstory – which is to say the full story. What could be tedious or trite in lesser hands comes across seamlessly and organically, in the hands of director Jean-Marc Vallée (Dallas Buyers Club) and screenwriter Nick Hornby (About A Boy, An Education), almost as if we were inside Cheryl’s head. Whether she is recalling moments with her mother (some of which she surely is not proud of), risky behavior, arguments with her husband (Thomas Sadoskie), or any other episodes in her life, the point of view is frank but not judgmental, neither air-brushed nor exploitive.

The on-the-trail adventures and misadventures are sometimes comical (this was a petite girl with zero backcountry experience), sometimes scary - as she faces beasts of the wild, some furry, some human, some real and some imagined, with little more than her courage and wits for protection.

Producer Reese Witherspoon also plays Cheryl, and she carries every frame. On the trail, sans makeup, without her trademark bangs or coiffure, in a tee-shirt and shorts, Witherspoon looks very different from what we’ve come to expect of this movie star.  She looks like a regular person - approachable, vulnerable, nice-looking, but not extraordinary. This ordinariness allows us to forget the actress and to see young Cheryl Strayed, to connect with her, sympathize with her, be carried along with her. Nor does it hurt that Ms Witherspoon is acting her ass off here, in the best dramatic performance of her career.  She has already been nominated for Golden Globe and SAG awards, and I’d guess an Oscar nomination is forthcoming, as well.

Most of the supporting players perform well. In particular, Laura Dern, who plays Cheryl’s mom, Bobbi, has been receiving critical raves. Seen exclusively in flashback, Bobbi is ever cheerful, encouraging, soothingly maternal, and staunchly positive, even in the face of adversity. This woman is too good to be true, I thought; until I realized that what I was seeing was a very subjective, grief imbued reminiscence, a reflection of Cheryl’s feelings about her mother and about herself – not the real Bobbi. This blatantly subjective point of view is consistent throughout, and is one of the real virtues of Wild.

Indeed, the core of this story is the exploration of Cheryl’s relationship with her mom.  The endless walking, the solitude of her journey, allows her to grieve, finally, four years after Bobbi’s death, and to reflect.  Bobbi had told Cheryl “There is a sunrise and a sunset every day and you can choose to be there for it … you can put yourself in the way of beauty.” This becomes a source of inspiration to our disheartened, despairing protagonist. The understanding she eventually draws from integrating such memories and her grief, and the strength she draws from overcoming physical and emotional adversity on the trail allows her to find faith in herself, to heal.  

By the way, Guys? Don’t look at this as a “chick flick.” It’s not concerned with romantic love, not a comedy, not about gal-pals. True, it’s a far cry from a “dick flick”, and if car chases, explosions, wartime action or explosions are your thing, you won’t find it here. Instead, Wild is a well-made, honest, engaging cinematic memoir of a seemingly fragile yet tough woman and her coming of age.  As a guy, I both liked and admired this movie. 

I can’t say I was moved by it, however, and I don’t know if this is a gender thing or an age thing, or both. Are women more likely to be touched by Wild?  Young people? Not sure.  But I was fascinated. In fact, I have since picked up the book and am working my way through that.

Wild is a film worth checking out.

In wide release.