Saturday, January 24, 2015

Wild

I moved on to the Best Actress nominees last night with a screening of Wild to see Reese Witherspoon (see my commentaries on Rosamund Pike and Felicity Jones).   My book club read the popular memoir by Cheryl Strayed several years ago and I really enjoyed it so I was looking forward to the movie.  I think it is a great adaptation of the book and it vividly captures Strayed's humor and insight.  After the death of her mother, the break-up of her marriage, a heroin addiction, and years of promiscuous behavior, Cheryl Strayed (Witherspoon) decides to hike a portion of the Pacific Crest Trail by herself as a way to get back to being the woman her mother raised.  She has very little outdoor experience and an overweight backpack (nicknamed "The Monster") but she makes it on sheer force of will.  It is a non-linear narrative showing the progression of her hike in chronological order with flashbacks to specific points in her life as she deals with and makes peace with her demons.  Reese Witherspoon is excellent in this physically demanding role and the scene where she finally acknowledges the pain of her mother's death is most affecting.  I also found the scene where she thinks about giving up just a few yards from the trailhead to be quite amusing.  This may be Witherspoon's best performance since Walk The Line and, at this point (I haven't seen Julianne Moore's performance in Still Alice), she has my vote for the Academy Award.  I was not so impressed with Laura Dern (nominated for Best Supporting Actress) as Cheryl's mother.  I think that Dern plays the same character over and over again and I've grown a bit weary of her hysterical-optimism-in-the-face-of-adversity characterization (I thought she was more believable as the mother in The Fault In Our Stars).  The scenery is absolutely spectacular, especially along the Oregon-Washington border, and I thought the use of Simon and Garfunkel's song "El Condor Pasa" throughout the movie was brilliant.  I've always loved that song!  Wild is very entertaining and I would definitely recommend it.

Note:  Several of my friends who have seen the movie have asked to borrow my copy of the book.  Anything that encourages people to read is worthy of my praise!

1 comment:

  1. Yeah, the nom for Laura Dern surprised me. I think there were far better performances.

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