NOTE: This is a reprint of my review from the Virginia Film Festival. Wild opens in DC on Friday, December 5th.
One woman takes the long, hard (and literal) road to self-discovery in Wild, Jean-Marc Vallee's adaptation of the empowering memoir by Cheryl Strayed. A book club favorite and a phenomenon inspiring millions of loyal devotees, the book caught the eye of Reese Witherspoon some years ago, planning at first to merely produce rather than star as the much-younger (at the time) Strayed, but it's to all of our benefit that she took on the role as it's easily the best she's had since her Oscar-winning performance in Walk the Line.
Penned by the great novelist Nick Hornby, who has written a book or two about personal redemption, Wild details Strayed's extraordinary 1100-mile hike along the Pacific Crest Trail, an attempt to walk herself away from a history of bad choice and personal tragedies, in hopes of finding the woman she wants to be on the other side. We've seen these kinds of stories before, in fact one very recently in Tracks, which told nearly an identical true-life tale of redemption. The two share much in common from an aesthetic and thematic standpoint, but Wild is the more complete film by far, one that bristles with emotional resonance and enlightenment.
Beginning at a moment when her journey has taken an unexpectedly precarious (and bloody) turn, the story then splits two-fold, one in the present and another mostly in flashback. And there are plenty of flashbacks; flashbacks of every kind, in fact, but all are necessary to dot the points in Strayed's life that drove her to make such an audacious decision. She's not a hiker; or at least not an experienced one, and this is a dangerous trek for those who know what they're doing. What's obvious right away is that something terrible must have happened, either to her or caused by her, that led to this. When we see her struggling to even begin the hike, literally stumbling under the weight of her gigantic backpack (nicknamed "monster" by others), we know it's just the start of an arduous ordeal that she may not walk away from.
The particulars of her past are doled out in bits an pieces, flashes of memory blurred with reality. In actuality they aren't all that hard to figure out or understand. We see her loving and forgiving ex-husband (Thomas Sadoski), who she cheated on with multiple men while on a downward spiral of heroine abuse. The root cause of her self-destruction concerns her angelic mother (Laura Dern), whom Strayed both loves and begrudges. It's a little weird to think of Dern as Witherspoon's mother considering how close they are in age, but it works because their relationship they share is closer to that of siblings than mother and daughter. Casting isn't the issue; both women are phenomenal here, in particular Witherspoon in a grueling, captivating performance as vital as anything you'll see all year.
More troublesome is the fractured narrative and redundant use of flashback that makes it difficult for the film to find a steady rhythm. It's a small price to pay for a deeper understanding of Strayed, and we come to see the extent of her self-afflicted heartache. What's even more fascinating is her attitude about the choices she's made, suggesting at one point she'd do it all over again, the drugs and the random hook-ups, not because they inform who she is now but because they were enjoyable. They did what they were supposed to do which is serve as a diversion, but if Strayed wants a future those behaviors simply can't continue. Deeper shades of her personality peek out along the way,especially during her interactions with others, who are almost exclusively men. These encounters add a tinge of danger because, let's face it, she's a woman out alone in the woods surrounded by guys who may not have seen a female in months. So much about Wild works in just the right ways that what doesn't tends to stand out. Strayed's quoting of great poets comes off as a weak attempt at profundity which we never really see in Strayed, while the occasional appearance of a spirit animal is a little too on-the-nose for a film that strives so hard to stay grounded elsewhere. 
Wild is another bold effort from Vallee, who directed Matthew McConaughey to an Oscar for Dallas Buyers Club. He seems to have the touch for pulling career-defining performances out of his stars (he gave Emily Blunt her breakout role in The Young Victoria), and Witherspoon proves more than up to the task. Raw, emotionally and physically fatigued, it's great to see her in something meaningful again. She may no longer be America's sweetheart like she was years ago, but roles like this could turn that around real quick. Beautiful panoramic views aside, there's little to the cinematography truly captures the dangerous terrain Strayed must tread; Mother Nature is never the constant threat we would expect her to be. She's not much of a threat at all, really. The real battle is within Strayed, urged by others and sometimes herself to quit; the perseverance she shows is infectious and makes us want to tag along on her journey. Rating: 3.5 out of 5
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