Reese Witherspoon in a scene from the film Wild. Photo / AP
Cast: Reese Witherspoon, Laura Dern
Director: Jean-Marc Vallee
Running Time: 119 mins
Rating: R16 (Sex scenes, nudity, drug use, language)
Verdict: Raw journey of self-discovery hinges on strong performance.
Fed up with a lack of stimulating female leads in Hollywood,
Reese Witherspoon formed a production company and started making her own work. She's created herself a doozy (and a deserved Oscar nomination) playing Cheryl Strayed in Wild.
The film is an adaptation of Strayed's best-selling memoir of the same name, which chronicles the author's soul-searching trek of 1800km from the Mojave Desert to the Oregon-Washington border. Though the physical challenge is daunting, especially for an inexperienced hiker with too-small boots and an overstuffed backpack, Wild isn't a story of man-against-nature triumph. Self-destruction is more likely to scuttle Cheryl than a rattlesnake.
When she sets off on the trail Cheryl is unmoored, devastated by the death of her mother and mourning her crumbled marriage - the fallout of her sleeping around and heroin use. The hike is her conscious effort to heal herself. "I'm going to walk myself back to the person my mother thought I was," declares Cheryl. Yes, Wild teeters towards the self-help aisle with inspirational handwritten quotes and earnest voiceover, but the material resonates because of its authentic roots and the benefit of expert treatment from screenplay writer Nick Hornby (About a Boy) and director Jean-Marc Vallee (Dallas Buyers Club).
