Wild

This was a great movie and exactly what I needed! I know from now on to not listen to most of the reviews on here at all. They are the opposite of good!? This was along the lines of Into The Wild, not as good but not bad at all and worth watching. Well done! This could be called a chick flick for real women who want substance, Strength and encouragement from the female in the role. When the world gets to much and is sucking your life away- Get the heck out and walk, climb a mountain , ride a horse ! Push the boundaries of what you think you are capable of and learn! I cried , it was good. I didn't know anything about it until I watched it. I have been coming to IMDb to pick movies with good ratings and people giving good reviews. Only to be disappointed time and again. If you like the Idea of the film , you will likely enjoy it as much as I did.

I am really surprised at all of the negative reviews here. But then I remember, this is IMDb. Enough said there. I enjoyed this movie very much. I don't think it was anything more than the story of one woman trying to find a way to move forward. This movie is not a political statement about feminism. This is ONE woman's story of regret, healing, and ultimately about forgiving herself so that she could move forward. Is this movie boring? Only if you need CGI and superheroes to call it "exciting." Do people do really adventurous things like taking off alone on a thousand mile trek on foot? Yeah, they do. And most of them actually survive. People have been surviving for thousands of years by striking out on their own without any previous experience or "training." Many years ago I did something very similar to what this woman did in the Sierra Nevadas. Looking back now I know I must have been crazy to do something so unplanned. But it was something I felt I had to do and was also stemmed from a tragic loss. I thought Reese was very believable in this role. The constant flashbacks that seemed to bother all the other reviewers did not bother me in the least. The flashbacks were the unfolding of her life taken in little pieces and in sync with the memories that were ignited within her on her journey. So contrary to the other reviewers, I liked this movie! The soundtrack was right on target with what was happening in each scene. The scenery was stunning, but of course it would be if you've ever been in the area. On foot. I happily gave this movie a rating of 7 out of 10.

No secret that I love one-man survival films (although this wasn't that type of "survival" film). Still, despite very good reviews, there was always a severe lack of hype and passion it seemed (certainly here). Maybe that's why I was so surprised. Usually this kind of heavy-edited, heavy- flashback-intercutting-with-main-story film alienates me emotionally for that reason. Too much back and forth. I had the same problem with 2007's Into The Wild, which so often prevented me from getting too involved with it. For some reason I didn't have that problem here. The actual story, as well as the dramatic ticks in the flashbacks and even in the present, aren't anything we haven't seen before dozens of times. However, the film really managed work despite that. The editing I found to enhance the film immensely, and the specific style of the intercutting with her memories managed to make the film more powerful.

I like Witherspoon just fine in Walk The Line, but it was all mostly surface-level. She was fun, but any lasting impact? Not at all. She's truly fantastic here, and she will get a very deserved nomination tomorrow. Now, everyone knows how much I'd been rooting for Laura Dern for a nomination. I hadn't seen it, but she's one of my favorite actresses. But so many reports of her role being super small, almost a cameo. Her role technically is super small, less than 10 minutes for sure, but the relationship between her and Witherspoon is the central relationship at the core here. Dern's presence is felt throughout to an incredible degree. And she really does have a meaty role for such short screen time. It reminds me of Jessica Chastain in The tree Of Life and also to Patricia Arquette in Boyhood, perfect depiction of that feeling of compassion and motherly love that is eternal. Dern is one of those actors that can move me with so little, so I don't think this was at all anything difficult for her, but either way, she manages to become such an undeniable, powerful part of the film. The editing is part of the reason that central relationship works, but the scenes Dern gets to convey her entire character are flawlessly acted and, so beautifully ethereal. I had feared for a while there that it would be such a small role she'd make no lasting impact, but of course she'd make an impact. It's Laura Dern after all.

An arduous journey across America on the Pacific Crest Trail, Cheryl Strayed tests her tenacity to continue forward till the end. There's very little else to the story, which makes this film really powerful. With not much else other than a tedious walk and a vampish past the story bobs back and forth between the present and the past revealing how Cheryl finds herself in such a circumstance and why she cant stop until she is finished.

At first Cheryl seems like a woman unable to let go of her now ex-husband, beginning a journey with more baggage than is necessary. It might almost be easy to throw this story into the bin of sappy chick-flicks when that inability to get closure on a relationships end is actually fronting as more of an act of remorse and regret. She messed up. And there is no way to repair the damage without an ugly scar.

The further she goes the more she dives into the series of events that lead her to such a devastating circumstance of sex and drugs. The loss of her mother is far too much for her to feel. The depth of such pain can sometimes strip a human being from feeling anything at all. The tears flow from her face but those tears are not falling for grief, they drop from the overwhelming numbing the death has caused.

Cheryl's emotions are lost in a wild and desolate space that is pain and grief, which is so perfectly mirrored with the vast, open landscape she is now physically wondering through. And both her emotions and the land are the same: it wont change immediately and things will be tough but if one keeps going forward one will come out of it. And better for it. Cheryl just needed that physical aspect to make the connection with her emotions. The self-loathing and destructive life she was living was the equivalence of her just lying down on the sandy path and dying right there.

It's a fairly event-less film where a woman just goes through some fairly tough terrain but somehow the flashes to her past spliced in with the turmoil of her present moves the story along swimmingly.

If you're a fan of deeply emotional story lines this one might very well be worth the watch.

A wonderful performance from Reese Witherspoon anchors this very good film about a troubled young woman who embarks on a miles-long hike as a sort of personal therapy to deal with the downward spiral of her life in the wake of her mother's (Laura Dern) death. Witherspoon reminds everyone what a good actress she is; I haven't been this impressed by her as an actress since "Election" way back in 1999 (and that includes her overrated Oscar-winning performance in "Walk the Line"). And it's nice to see Laura Dern again, who's popped up here and there over the past many years but has mostly been absent from the movie scene. The movie's editor deftly integrates flashbacks of Dern and Witherspoon together with the character's hike through the wild, and avoids the monotony that usually plagues films when structured this way.

One of the minor miracles of "Wild" is how subtly it explores not just the trials and dangers one would encounter in such a hike, but specifically how those trials and dangers are heightened, or at least are of a different nature, for a woman. Only once in the film is it overtly addressed, but before that scene late in the film, the director and Witherspoon have already conveyed without words how perilous such an adventure could be for a young woman, for whom every encounter with a strange man carries with it the possibility of sexual predation, even if it doesn't materialize (which, the film acknowledges, in most cases it doesn't). At the same time, the film restores one's faith a little bit in humanity, suggesting that most people are decent and kind and willing to help, no strings attached.

Witherspoon and Dern were both justly Oscar nominated for their performances, and the gorgeous Pacific West scenery deserved an award of its own.

Grade: A