The real-life story of Cheryl Strayed and her 1,100 mile
hike along the Pacific Crest Trail is the sort of subject I could easily see
being destined for simplistic Hollywood schlock. There are so many obvious
avenues a studio could follow to wring all the humanity out of this tale, to
exploit every ‘inspirational’ moment or personal triumph for maximum emotional
manipulation, and to turn Cheryl and her story into a symbol or stereotype rather
than a genuine human journey. Indeed, the most impressive thing about the film
Jean-Marc Vallée and Reese Witherspoon have made is that it takes none of those
easy paths. Wild is an insightful, deeply felt chronicle of a complex
protagonist on a compelling, multifaceted journey, a modest and dignified film
about overcoming grief, guilt, and other internal barriers. The film is
emotionally rich, and absolutely inspirational, but it comes by these sensations
honestly, only occasionally overplaying the story’s strong dramatic core, and
always approaching the material with sensitivity and intelligence. As stories
like Strayed’s go, I cannot imagine a more effective cinematic rendering than
this.
Continue reading after the jump…
The major challenge of a film like Wild lies in illustrating what is largely an internalized journey.
Sure, Cheryl may be walking 1,100 miles, across harsh terrains and lonely tundra,
but that alone isn’t what makes her story fantastic or uplifting. It’s what
drives Cheryl that makes her adventure identifiable on a basic human level, and
her trek is precipitated, and haunted, by some all-too-relatable demons.
Strayed lost her mother, whom she was very close to, when she was only 22, and
turned to reckless sex and drug abuse as a result of the emotional fallout,
eventually resulting in the disintegration of her first marriage. By the time Cheryl’s
long desert hike begins, her life has effectively fallen apart, as has any
concrete sense of self. Her journey is archetypal – a long, physically arduous expedition
symbolizing the pursuit of self-actualization – but when rendered well, that’s
exactly what makes her story worth telling. Few of us can claim to have done
something as extraordinary as hike that many miles, to commit so fully to
something so difficult, but that quest to redefine oneself after major personal
upheaval? That is universally meaningful, and in relating the specifics of
Cheryl’s story with such a deft, measured hand, the film manages to strike at
some true human profundity.
Vallée does tremendous work illustrating the physical highs
and lows of Cheryl’s journey; with lush, sun-kissed imagery and quietly sensual
handheld photography, the film looks spectacular, and isn’t afraid to linger on
the particulars of such an arduous trek. We are immersed in the demanding
realities of hiking so far, in the little intricacies of what one packs and how
one eats, or in broader challenges like isolation, dehydration, and navigation.
Without ever overplaying its hand, Wild is
a gently experiential portrait of Cheryl’s long natural excursion, and that
alone makes the film utterly unique from anything else I have seen all year.
What makes Wild truly
special, though, is how beautifully it evokes the internal element of Cheryl’s
expedition. The film starts at the very beginning of her hike, and concludes
almost exactly at the moment she finishes, but in between, the film flashes
throughout moments from Cheryl’s past, in tandem with how she experiences
memory and interior reflection during the hike. The film is wonderfully fluid
and lyrical in how it presents the ‘flashback’ material, often presenting us
with fleeting glimpses of significant moments, entirely out of context, to illustrate
where Cheryl’s mind is at any given moment. By the end, we understand fully the
compounding personal challenges that send Cheryl off to the Pacific Crest
Trail, but the film has no adherence to chronology. It is about emotional
truths and the scattered timelines of personal reflection, and every flashback
is as much about revealing Cheryl’s thoughts, fears, and baggage as it is about
doling out exposition. There is some really powerful editing at work here, and
I absolutely love the film’s overall construction. As vast and harrowing as it
is on the literal, exterior level, it is every bit as rich and impactful in
portraying an individual’s journey to find inner-peace.
And yes…as someone who lost a beloved parent, at almost
exactly the exact same age Cheryl was when she lost her mother, and who
intimately knows what it feels like to have every part of oneself redefined in
the aftermath, Wild speaks to me. It
feels authentic, from top to bottom, which is the sort of intangible praise I
can report better than I can explain. There are two primary things that struck
me here, though, in terms of making this story feel genuine, and the first is
how Cheryl’s mother is portrayed more as a subject of memory than as an actual
human being. As the mother, Laura Dern isn’t really playing a character here;
there is no complexity to her, and neither are there any major shadings. She is
sort of perfect, an image of strength and wisdom who is as inspirational as she
impalpable, and I think that speaks to the way a lost loved one becomes
iconographic in our memory, their imperfections gradually sanded away by grief.
Second, I was moved by how the film hones in on guilt and self-laceration as
extensions of mourning. The whole film is, in essence, about the manner in which
loss can make one tear oneself and one’s identity apart, and the ways Vallée,
Witherspoon, and screenwriter Nick Hornby interpret Strayed’s real-life
reflections feels incredibly insightful and empathetic. “I’m gonna walk myself
back to the woman my mother thought I was,” Cheryl says at one point in the
film; reverse the gendered words, and I have said that sentence to myself more
than once since my father passed. I doubt I’m the only one.
Witherspoon is truly the key figure here, going the distance
with a demanding performance that fuels and colors the whole of the film. She
has to play Strayed at a variety of ages, across a wide swath of periods and
experiences, and in modes both isolated and interpersonal. She excels at every
single one, quickly identifying the heart and personality of this person before
diving deep to reveal further and further layers of Cheryl’s character. Her
work is entertaining, gripping, and moving every step of the way, and even when
the writing tip-toes into overbearing, on-the-nose territory, Witherspoon
reigns things back into honest territory with remarkable ease. I have always
enjoyed Witherspoon’s acting, but her work here is, frankly, a revelation, the
kind of commanding, all-encompassing performance that can turn an actor into a
legend. Especially in such a thin year for actresses in leading roles, it would
be absurd for anyone else to win the Oscar.
That marks two years in a row now that Jean-Marc Vallée has
gotten career-best work out of a well-established talent, between this and Dallas Buyers Club, but Wild also feels like a more significant
directorial achievement than the previous film did. As in Dallas, Vallée tends to keep his style subdued, putting the
performer and story front and center, but in the characteristic way Wild is shot and edited, with such detail-oriented
photography and stream-of-consciousness cutting, one can feel the hand of an
inspired helmer at work. This is a passionate, beautifully-realized film,
subtle and subdued where it so easily could have been obvious and overwrought,
and in a year practically bursting at the seams with accomplished ‘true-life’
tales – The Theory of Everything, The
Imitation Game, Foxcatcher, Selma, and so on – Wild is one of the best.
Wild is now playing in
select theatres and cites, including at the Landmark Esquire in Denver.
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