Wild

source: Wild

this was suppose to Reese big comeback to the serious movies, Which I guess is why they put in all the nudity there.(She looks great though, for being 40+ and a mum) The landscape scenery is just fantastic at times, but always get interrupted by annoying flashbacks from her childhood or misspent youth. Which was just annoying as can be. you don't feel anything for her character, cause her background is all scrambled in flashbacks. A Little bit here a little bit there. The music in the movie, was kind of annoying. It wasn't really needed, and it didn't really fit. When you gonna walk the Mojave desert I would expect you to have a sunscreen and sunglasses, not to mention drink a lot of water. Yet the only time we see Reese drink is when she's at the rest stops along the trail, which is supposedly few and far between. She also get no sunburn which is strange, considering she wear shorts and t-shirt all the time. But she get a heavy pack. rash. which they use every opportunity they can to show off. The problem is Reese as a trail walker isn't believable, she just can't convince me that she's the type, she always look to damn perfect. Her hair is always straight and groomed. Her make up is always perfect. It makes me wonder, have these people ever seen backpackers outside of travel magazines? They are usually filthy and dirty and their hair is a mess. Reese hasn't one strain of hair out of place. The only sign she's been walking in the desert heat, are some dust in her face She also seem to have very little direction. Considering it some sort of a famous hiking trail, I would assume its pretty good market. Especially when you think of all the 1000 of people, whom must have walked ahead of her, and who must have hiked it before. Yet Reese, seem to walk all over the place. There was a scene midway into the movie, that made no sense at all. A man who stand on the street corner in some town delivering flyer's to passers by, comes over to talk to her. And suddenly she's afraid of him and start backing up, even though he's far outside her personal space and they're in the middle of a public street. At first I thought she knew him from her past. But as it turned out, they were complete stranger to each other

This film tells the story of a woman who goes onto a one thousand mile hike along the mountain trails, in order to find herself after being hurt by major life events. I had high hopes for "Wild" because it was directed by the same person who directed "Dallas Buyers Club", which I thought was brilliant. After reading the plot summary of "Wild", I thought there would be much soul searching, honest introspection and many tears. "Wild" tells the plain story of Cheryl hiking for three months. The very first scene of her dropping her boots off a cliff is already the most captivating scene in the whole film. Like the boots, the film goes downhill from there. Cheryl's hike is poorly prepared, but she does not really endure much life threatening hardships. I find the hike rather uneventful. The most exciting adventure she has is so see a snake on her path. The transient connections with the other hikers are so superficial and non consequential, that they could have been edited from the plot. Even when she is running out of water, I felt no captivation by the plot, or any sympathy for her. The flashbacks into her past give a glimpse of her life before the hike, but this subplot feels disjointed because viewers are at a complete lost as to why she ended up the way she was. Fortunately, the subplot about the sick mother is better, but it is not enough to carry the whole film. I think the main problem with the film is that the aim of it is unclear. There is no clear reason as to why she hiked, and there is no clear objective as to what she wants to achieve from it. The portrayal of the mental state during the hike does not really tie in into her past, so the hike and the flashbacks have a wide disconnect. In contrast to "Into the Wild" which was a captivating and profoundly moving film, "Wild" fails to achieve anything. It is a literal meandering through the wild, with no emotional roller-coaster. Even the ending monologue is a stale, meaningless mumble. I was disappointed by "Wild".

I loved this movie. My favorite part about this movie is the idea - being true to ones feelings, being destroyed by pain to the point of loosing oneself and having the strength to finding it again; having the strength and incredible will to let go and move on. I find it deep and insightful. I also like the presentation of this idea - in a simple, very honest way. That's why I think, the symbolism they used fits in so well, even though it's a bit obvious - the heavy bag she carries at the beginning of the journey, bleeding feet, getting new shoes that fit, throwing up (as letting all the bad things out) and coming to the gods bridge. All of these are classic, obvious symbols, which are in tune with the simpleness of the presentation of the idea. This brings me to another point I like about this movie, how it contrasts this very simple plot and very simple presentation to very complicated 'things' inside the main character. I also have to mention the script, because its loooong time since I have seen/heard such a good script - communicating the drama of one's life without overdoing it. And OK, there are some factual errors in this movie, but they are not so important and Witherspoon did a great job as an actress and a producer. For me it's her best movie so far. So to sum it up - strong drama, in simple, honest presentation, inspiring to return to your good self, no matter what may happen. The way we deal with our feelings, is the way we leave.

I wanted to like this movie (and expected to for Reese Witherspoon alone) but after watching it, I cannot say I do. The movie chronicles the true story of the solo trek of Cheryl Strayed along the Pacific Coast Trail – an undertaking which is daunting even to the seasoned hiker and which should have been near impossible to someone as unprepared as Ms. Strayed. While the film presents some of the obstacles facing a trekker and some of the breath-taking scenery that is the benefit of such a hike, it focuses too much on the past bad relationships and personal bad choices that provided the motivation for Ms. Strayed to hit the road. Yeah, back-story is important, but here the back- story seems to take as much screen time as the main story. And since I cannot relate to a person who abandons her good spouse to indulge in drugs and other reckless behavior, I did not really find myself rooting for Ms. Strayed to complete her journey and beat her inner demons.

This was a really, really bad film. And furthermore, it was a really bad adaptation of a fairly decent book. The plot plays out like someone is having acid flashbacks while doing a hike. This movie was slow, corny, annoying, disjointed, boring.... It has some really good names tied to it - Reece, Nick Hornby (come on Nick!), Jean Marc Vallee, Laura Dern, Cheryl Strayed.... but what a ripe mess! Don't even get me started on the soundtrack, or the CGI fox. If you want to watch a good movie about solo adventures, check out: 1. Tracks 2. Into the Wild 3. 127 Hours 4. Life of Pi 5. Castaway. And only watch this B-movie if you want to see an example of how NOT to adapt an adventure narrative to film.

well, if you really regret for what you have been, what you have done, what you have behaved, i mean, all bad in general, and you suddenly realized that your past is nothing but an ugly picture and bad memories; lot of drug abuse, random sex, bad manners/attitude to people around you, and you, of all the people in the world, suddenly want to change, to get some rehabilitation for your wrongdoing, without any second thought, you decide to punish yourself by walking out of where you live and failed so miserably, with a huge backpack that contained the basic necessity, to go somewhere else most on foot; your simple goal is to repent, to punish, to redeemed, to rediscover, to relieve yourself. what a stupid and naive way of thinking of yours! you think that to torture yourself by trudging 1,100 miles from the southern California to the northern Oregon or even further up to the north, from desert to high mountains, into the wildness, the coldness, the hunger, the bone-tired trekking and after that, you could find yourself and become a better person? are you kidding me? and on the way to rediscover yourself, to re-evaluate your miserable life, if there's chance to meet or encounter some dude, then you won't miss such luck to have some casual sex again like what you used to do in the past? does that look shallow and pretentious to yourself and to all the others? here, we got Witherspoon carrying a huge backpack all around, but it didn't look too much a burden to her. when she walked through the snowy mountain or trudging in the desert wildness, we never saw any deep footprints that should have appeared or left along her routes. her back never bent by the weight from the heavy load. this weightless backpack was just so fake and phony just like what we have seen in 'american sniper', the guy holding and hugging a lifeless dummy doll. the backpack and the dummy doll both just looked so obviously ridiculous funny. but somehow, the director might thought that making Witherspoon carrying a huge backpack was like Jesus Christ carrying a huge and heavy cross on his back, the torture symbolized the burden that Jesus Christ carried for the whole humankind. if it was what the director thought, then the huge backpack indeed was telling you something meaningful. otherwise, it's not only inappropriate, it just looked stupid. if you really want to change, to rediscover yourself, to make a new you, you can always stay at home to achieve the same result in no time.

I am the daughter of a mother who recently passed away from lung cancer. She never smoked, like the protagonist mother. I cried many times during this movie. It made me think a lot because like the lead character, i often ruminate over the past; i have a lot of flashbacks and memories of my mother keep replaying in my head., and the things she said to me will forever echo in my brain. In terms of the sex and the drug taking, i think Resse did very well in portraying the daughter who completely lost herself and the desire to live with the loss of her mother. I also grew up in a single household and my mother and I were always together, our identity are intertwined; it was us against the world. Losing our mother is like losing more than life itself, I am still finding myself lost and struggling to find meaning in life. It is a constant struggle to not give up and give into self destruction and I am very thankful that the protagonist captured this feeling very well. Like the life of a lot of people, this movie is about the journey we take. Its not about the destination or achieving a particular purpose. It is deeply realistic, and i am glad it doesn't lecture or give a moral lesson on how we should be ,or a happy ending because we don't always get that in life. Life is ugly and it doesn't always end in happiness and things don't always happen for a reason good people do not always get a good ending and normal people can do bad things to themselves and to toh others due to pain brought on by unbearable grief. This movie inspires me to maybe run a marathon. Walking, hiding and running are very meditative and its like a metaphor for life, no matter what happened, all we can do is keep walking.

When you have a film that is so heavily reliant on a single character, it's so important to make that character likable or relatable. I'm a big Reese Witherspoon fan and have been for a while, but I think she's got it all wrong in this film. Within a few minutes, I was already sick of the bad attitude and whining of her character. She turned up for a 1000 mile trek with 12 condoms, hardly any water and the wrong fuel for her stove. I didn't care about the character, and because of the way the films timeline is set out, you only get information in small flashbacks (which is annoying). This all means that you don't fully discover why this trek is being done until over an hour into the film. By that time I'd already mentally checked out and couldn't care less about the back story. I'm not certain what this film is supposed to be. It fails as a self-discovery film as the character who is supposed to be a recovering sex addict sleeps with one of the first guys she sees on the trek. It also fails as a survival movie as no less than 8 days into a 'character building wilderness trek' is our character hitching a ride back to a man's house to have a hot dinner and shower??? As with most reviewers, I can admit the scenery is beautiful and the film is reasonably well shot. Although I suppose they couldn't go too wrong with the PCT as a backdrop. But even the physical aspects of the film don't add up. Reese has no sun tan/burn after weeks in the baking sun. Her hair certainly doesn't resemble the hair of someone who has been trekking for weeks. I'm not an avid walker but I think I can bet my last dollar that the film is about as accurate to trekking as 'Vertical Limit' was to climbing. In the film's defence, it may be closely following the book that it is based upon. If that's the case, I sure as hell don't fancy reading the book.

Your life will most likely determine whether or not you like this film, whether or not it moves you. I read the book and was not sure how they were going to make such an introspective novel into a movie but they did a pretty good job. My group of friends had mixed reactions, some of us were deeply moved (myself included) some where wondering why we were... I felt the way her story was portrayed in flashbacks was very effective and about the only way to tell this story. It can never be as deep as the emotions in the book and it had to skim over a lot but still, for me and others I was with it was very powerful. On a superficial side note... I wish she had looked dirtier. Her hair and clothes always looked too clean for what she was doing with very minimal hygiene.