Wild

A conventional travel drama about the search for oneself, which Jean-Marc Vallée is able to enrich with interesting flashbacks, most of the time. They develop several themed storylines that focus on the magnetic Reese Witherspoon. Her transformation from a frightened novice who isn’t able to lift her own backpack to queen of the PCT is so impressively experienced, so much so that one also forgets balancing on the edge of kitsch, a bit of amateurish symbolism and a stretched last third. Not that Hornby's "book-like" screenplay helps with its pronounced durability and depth, but as a pleasant spiritual trip through a beautiful landscape for one evening, it's absolutely okay. (03/06/2015)

In retrospect, after Big Little Lies, it's easy to appreciate Jean-Marc Vallée's collaboration with Reese Witherspoon and Laura Dern. A pleasant experience, despite the fact that the subject is quite unique. Whoever is tempted by this adventure on foot through the wilderness can also read the autobiographical book of the same name by Cheryl Strayed. (02/15/2020)

When you cheat and take drugs, you become a prostitute... What is surprising is that the Wild is also good in terms of the intimate and chamber line "lonesome Witherspoon - inhospitable nature - endless purifying walk - the eternal self-question of the heroine". On the contrary, on this level, it does the job really well. To the extent that it makes you want to take a bag pack, go on a solitary hike and at the same time clear your head. The only drawback are the unnatural flashbacks, which at first can do with only hints/flashes in a nice way, but the closer Cheryl's journey comes to an end, the more literal and didactic they are. But what it only takes is one alpaca and everything what should be said becomes instantly clear. (02/27/2015)

Reese Witherspoon delivered quite a respectable performance in this movie. Already in the beginning, she showed how easily a chipped nail can be torn from a toe which went through a two-hundred-kilometer hike on a trek across the Rocky Mountains with an elevation gain of least thirty kilometers. After a moment, however, a totally typical story began to unravel. It shows us Reese who is going through purgatory, at first without showing the reason, and we’ll only get to know the reason gradually, from the glimpses of her memories. It took me some time to attune to her, and about a halfway into the movie everything was clear to me. And from that moment I started to really enjoy the movie. Too bad that the ending was too open. I like open endings in movies like this but in this case it kind of faded away into nothing. The Way (2010) is much better in this respect. Anyhow, Reese’s performance was really great – I’d say even greater that the elevation gain she had to tackle during the movie. (02/26/2015)

There are two reasons to check out these spiritual odysseys like Wild or Into The Wild: the haunting scenery and spiritual cleansing, or at least the psychological nitty-gritty of a main character full of opinions, attitudes and experiences that come into direct confrontation with the question of whether this or that decision is good or bad. With a little imagination, everyone will find themselves, at least for a while in some passages. They have done it cleverly and for good measure put in basically all the negative model situations that can happen to a person from an early age (a bully father, illness, poverty, drugs, etc.). Wild is less psychedelic and puts more emphasis on family, relationships and the formation of what one should have, or not have in life and what one should prioritise. Reese Witherspoon is convincing and solid, but doesn't, as it tends to do, get under the skin as she should, as despite all the blood and sweat it's still just a bedtime story, or rather a good morning one. (11/15/2015)