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nTitle: Wild (2014)
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nDirector: Jean-Marc Vallee
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nCast: Reese Witherspoon, Laura Dern
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nWild is the story of Cheryl Strayed, a woman who falls into heroinnaddiction and furthermore, becomes sexually promiscuous in order to deal withnher mother’s death. After reaching an all time low by becoming a town whore andngetting pregnant in the process, she decides it’s time to do something with hernlife in order to straighten things out. Shendecides to go hiking for three months in order to ‘find herself’ and eradicate hernheroin addiction. Can she survive on her own for three months in the wildernessnand kick her heroin addiction? And will Reese Witherspoon win an Oscar for thisnrole?
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nI did some surfing on the net, trying to scope the generalnreaction for this film and discovered (to my surprise) that some folks seem tonbe disappointed by this film because they find it “to simple of a movie”. Thatnit’s just about Reese Witherspoon walking around remembering the events thatnled her to heroin and sex addiction. That it’s not worthy of a movie, that it’snan ego trip for Reese Witherspoon. I guess those folks just don’t get it. Inmean, yes, they are right; this is a film about a woman walking and remembering,nbut to these sentiments I say, what’s wrong with that? What’s wrong with a filmnabout analyzing ourselves? So obviously, Wild is not a movie for everyone, especiallynnot those expecting special effects, action or impossible situations. No, thisnmovie is more of an introspective tale, a spiritual journey of self discovery,nso be ready for that.
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nHow personal is this story? Well, it’s based on CherylnStrayed’s book Wild: From Lost to Found in the Pacific Crest Trail, which shenmostly wrote as she hiked the trail herself. This is why we hear a lot of innernmonologue through out the film, we here Cheryl’s thoughts as she is hiking, which made perfect sensento me. When you hike for as long as shendid, it’s just you, the road, nature and your mind. So what the director was doingnhere was capturing the experience of hiking on film; the loneliness, the beautynof nature, the grandness of the landscape and the inevitable tendency to getnintrospective, to reanalyze your life; where you’ve been, where you’re going, what does it all mean? We also get a glimpse at the whole hiker community, a whole different lifestyle that you’ve probably never gotten a glimpse at. It’s thesenelements that make this film unique. A good movie should capture the experiencenit’s trying to represent on film in a convincing manner and director Jean-Marc Vallee did just that,nso kudos to him for it.
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nI like spiritual tales like this one. They are about peoplentrying to connect with themselves, with the universe, trying to find thengoodness in life by disconnecting from all the crap that society has to offer.nLet’s face it, the world we live in offers some really crappy solutions to thensameness of it all. Once you grow tired of your repetitive life, of yournproblems, it’s easy to turn to drugs and alcohol to escape it all. What I likednabout this movie is that it was Cheryl looking to escape from the escapes, ifnthat makes any sense at all. She’s cuts with the world and with everyone in itnin order to hear her own voice. That’s worthy of a movie for me, it’s a worthwhilenstory to tell. It reminded me a bit of Sean Penn’s Into the Wild (2007), thoughnthey are different films because Into the Wild was more about a man looking toncompletely disconnect from the modern life, completely giving his back tonsociety and the modern world. Wild is more about escaping itnall for a while, punishing your body a bit, showing it who is boss; taking anbreather from the modern world in order to return to the battle and start again. But they share that idea of disconnecting, leaving all the noise of the world behind. Hiking for three months in the wild is nonpiece of cake; it takes a special kind of determination and will power and yes,ninner strength to do it. Even more interesting is the fact that Cheryl Strayedndid this without any prior experience in trail hiking!
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nReese Witherspoon (left) and Cheryl Strayed (right)
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nReese Witherspoon has gotten an Oscar nomination for hernwork in this film, but she has to go up against some stiff competition. She’s going up against Julianne Moore for Still Alice, Rosamund Pike for Gone Girl, Felicity Jones fornTheory of Everything and Marion Cotillard for Two Days, One Night. I guess we’llnsee if she has what it takes to win, I thought her performance was excellentnbut I haven’t seen the competing films, so here’s hoping. I enjoy films like this one, they talk about life and how all of us deal with it in different ways. Some say big deal, we all got problemsnand they don’t make a movie about them. We all lose our mothers; we don’t allnturn to promiscuous sex and drugs to deal with it; to that I say we don’t allnreact the same way when we lose someone close to us, some of us go on justnfine, others break down. Each of our stories is different, they could make anmovie about all of our lives, each one would be entirely different, each one would teach us a little something about the world we live in. This isnCheryl Strayeds story, and we can learn just as much from it as well. It’s anstory about loss and redemption, told in a beautiful and sometimes poetic way, definitelynworth a watch.
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nRating: 5 out of 5
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