Why would an inexperienced hiker take on the entire 1,100-mile expanse of the rugged Pacific Crest Trail, all by herself?
In the case of Cheryl Strayed (Reese Witherspoon), she did it to test herself, to punish herself, to cleanse herself, and to find herself.
Based on the bestselling memoir, Wild plays like one part Eat, Pray, Love and two parts Into the Wild—the self-help book meets the adventure novel. When we first meet Strayed, she’s already well into her hike (if the sight of bloody, blistered feet and peeling toenails turns you off, look away), but then we flash back to her rocky start, where she strapped on a pack so large she couldn’t stand up in it and discovered she had brought the wrong kind of gas for her portable stove. In a murmured voiceover (her inner monologue), she implores herself to be strong, keep going. Several times she considers turning back. This is just the first day of what will be a three month journey.
So why would Strayed subject herself to such torture? There’s a tiny hint in her name, one she assigned herself for cheating, multiple times, on her husband. (Imagine, if you will, a woman so filled with self-loathing she brands herself with a kind of permanent Scarlet Letter). We find out more about her life through memories and flashbacks. She was raised by a devoted mother (excellent Laura Dern), who managed a nearly impossibly Pollyannish outlook on life, despite several hardships. After her mother dies of cancer, Strayed sinks into a crippling depression, losing herself in promiscuity and drugs. This leads to the divorce from her husband and the loss of various other anchors in life—friends, job. Strayed needs to learn to love herself, but to do that, she needs to forgive herself first. So she hikes.
On first glance, the petite Reese Witherspoon seems a poor choice to play Strayed—she looks downright breakable. And we tend to associate her with pert, wholesome over achievers like Tracey Flick and Elle Woods. But it’s those very things that contribute to the very real sense that Strayed was way out of her element. Not only is Strayed endangered by the extreme physical challenges of the hike, but by the various predators (both human and nonhuman) she meets along the way. And Reese is fully present in the role—including the hazy flashback scenes of her drug use and debauchery—in a way that is both real and raw.
It helps that her director of Jean Marc Vallée (Dallas Buyers Club) excels at impressionistic filmmaking, both on the trail and in those devastating flashback scenes. Thanks to Vallée, we are right there with Strayed at all times, rooting for her, fearing for her—experiencing every arduous and necessary step of her ultimately triumphant journey.
Wild opens on December 12 in Baltimore.