Star Cast: Reese Witherspoon, Laura Dern, Gaby Hoffman Director: Jean-Marc Vallée WILD is another film sweeping into theatres amid Oscar buzz for its producer-actor Reese Witherspoon. Based on a novel by the real Cheryl Strayed, on her journey from "being lost to found" over the 1,100-mile Pacific Crest Trail (south Mexico to Canada) trek, it rests entirely on Witherspoon's shoulders. And the slim actor who often manages to slip under your skin when you are least expecting it proves up to the task at least physically. It's a gruelling journey and Cheryl scrapes through parched, hungry, afraid, bruised and smelly almost all of the time. The film sticks to the format of the novel in telling Cheryl's story in flashbacks that go back and forth and sometimes are even just visual images. She is grieving for her mother, her marriage that she has destroyed, and her descent into drugs. Witherspoon is good in these parts, unsparing and harsh on herself. Her scenes with her mother (the ever-smiley Dern) and particularly her husband (a very good Hoffman) are brief but moving. That is more than can be said for the rest of the film, adapted from the novel by Strayed working along with Nick Hornby. It is a series of beautiful montages, and just when danger or threat appears lurking around the corner, help finds its way to Cheryl. The threat of sexual assault is almost a constant fear, as it should be, but doesn't appear to weigh Cheryl down. In fact, one of the best scenes involves a tractor driver at the start who tells her to get into his truck and then climbs in stripped to his vest. On the contrary, Cheryl finds comforts including sexual just when she needs them. She also goes through the trek neatly finding the answers she needs to, and leaving behind quotes in the register that just precisely capture her mood. Unexpected joys include a child who breaks out into a most beautiful rendition of Red River Valley, while 'I'd rather be a hammer' floats gently over the film. Someone describes Cheryl as "queen of the PCT (Pacific Crest Trail)". The film may not have intended the same, but Witherspoon feels rather like it.
