A female version of the 2011 Oscar nominated 127 Hours, in which James Franco played Aron Ralston, eventually finding redemption, albeit one hand short, while stuck in a mountain…
This time [the same studio] Fox Searchlight brings us Reese Witherspoon playing Cheryl Strayed finding also redemption and stuck in a mountain alone, but not by accident. The difference between the two films is that Witherspoon’s character, Strayed walks 1000 miles to find herself, while Aron had to cut of his own limb in order to free himself. Somehow watching him bleed seemed less painful then watching WILD.
Cheryl Strayed’s best-selling memoir WILD is her journey from heroin to her journey in the Mojave Desert. The book was a New York Times best-seller for multiple weeks…dark, sexy and explosive…Oprah came out of hiding to resurrect her ‘Book of the Month Club’ in its honor. WILD was even translated into 32 languages. So explain how as cliché as it sounds: The movie isn’t as good as the book.
…And it’s certainly not as engaging as Into the Wild, the 2007 masterpiece starring Emile Hirsch and directed by Sean Penn, about a young man who abandons everything to hitchhike to Alaska and live in the wilderness.
Instead WILD is disjointed – flashing back between breathless hikes to Strayed’s mother Bobbi (Laura Dern) with painful and fond memories before her sudden passing of lung cancer. But we never stay in those moments long enough to feel connected. The questions begin to surface for the viewer: why does Strayed feel the need to punish herself? To take a leave of absence from society? Certainly this is not what her mother would have wanted. Daily rituals and demands both physically and emotionally lead us to soon learn this journey is the polar opposite of the self-indulgent ‘Eat, Pray, Love.’ And at least that had a happy romantic ending.
Strayed comes in contact with rattle snakes, strange truckers, promiscuous sex, heroin addiction and a series of other events but she spends so much of her time screaming out loud or talking to herself (and then usually shifts us back to another flashback), we never become invested in her or her journey much like we did for James Franco when stuck between a rock and a hard place.
I desperately wanted to connect to Witherspoon’s character…truly wanted to love this film, but I just couldn’t ‘get it’ despite a departed and refreshing ‘grownup’ role from Witherspoon’s usually goodie-two-shoes. One question kept haunting me the way the flashbacks haunted Witherspoon: If only this were 127 Hours instead of 96-plus days…so where is Danny Boyle to direct when we really need him?
The film has similar tones of stubbornness, determination and techniques as last year’s Dallas Buyer’s Club. That would make sense since its director Jean Marc-Vallee directed McConnaughey to an Oscar win. One can’t imagine that happening here. Is it possible Marc-Vallee wanted us to feel as disoriented as Strayed lost in her addiction? And shouldn’t someone tell him that doesn’t work for the sober watching it? ♚♛