A woman named Cheryl with a tragic past decides to start her new life by hiking for one thousand miles on the Pacific Crest Trail. WILD incredibly captures the terrors and pleasures of one young woman forging ahead against all odds on a journey that maddens, strengthens, and ultimately heals her.
For all of the trouble 'Wild' takes to get into Strayed's head, you'd think they might've drafted filmmakers with a little bit more experience living in a place like that.
Despite all of its faults, Wild engaged me on a purely emotional level [...] I truly believe its heart is in the right place. When it connects emotionally, the tears you will shed are well-earned.
There's neither cinematic majesty to the vistas (and I saw the movie on a very big screen and sat very close to it) nor intimacy to the ground that Strayed treads.
What do you do when your heroine is tough but emotionally hurt, bright but glib, grown but immature? Make a film about her that is both painful and uplifting.
Wild may sound like a film about redemption, but it's more about learning to live with what you can't control - and accepting what you can control, which is sometimes just as difficult.
Modern hiking is a secular cousin of the pilgrimage; it heals through hardship, loneliness, silence, and beauty. The very fine 'Wild' depicts one woman's inner transformation.
