Wild

Dustin: 4 of 5 stars Nick: 3.5 of 5 stars Average: 3.75 of 5 stars (Live canary)

Dustin: Wild stars Reese Witherspoon as a “wild” young woman, Cheryl Strayed, who is hiking some cross-country trail in order to deal with her inner demons. Along the way she encounters other hikers, colorful back-woods types, and a CGI fox for some reason.

Nick: A fox that is obviously CGI at that!

Wild is flawless, from my perspective, in a technical aspect. Editing would jump between images from different times in Cheryl’s life while throwing dream-like sequences in for good measure, which helped to bring some much needed sympathy for our lost main character. The cinematography was gorgeous and the score was unheard (which is how it should be).

Dustin: I thought it was very well done from a storytelling aspect, and the technical elements complemented that. There is the linear story of Cheryl hiking the trail, with flashbacks from various points in her life accounting for half the story. The flashbacks were integrated seamlessly into the story.

Did you ever get the feeling, though, that some of her background was exaggerated for cinematic effect?

Nick: Could you elaborate? Just because there are a lot of dream-like sequences strewn throughout.

Dustin: Mainly the stuff with the drugs and sleeping around, all the rock-bottom stuff. Cheryl has a very good vocabulary, and I’d say difficulty hiking a cross-country trail be filed under “white people problems,” and that just doesn’t quite match up for me to her background as a drug addict. I imagine it was somewhat true, but perhaps exaggerated for the story.

Nick: So you think the problems she faced in the desert “wild” is somewhat fiction while the problems in the city “wild” are real?

Dustin: No, the other way around. I think she may have experimented with drugs and cheated on her husband as depicted in the movie, but I wonder if it was as full-blown rock-bottom, or if that was heightened to make a more interesting film.

Nick: I completely agree with that. Whether it’s true doesn’t really matter, but because it feels so forced to the audience it kind of starts to wear thin. The degree of heroin usage does not comply, to me, when grieving over the loss of a mother. I wish we got images of her downfall. It seems that we saw her as her mother was dying and then one year later now a junkie and strumpet.  

Dustin: Perhaps it would have been wiser to suggest that stuff rather than show it. I know a storyteller should “show” rather than “tell,” but when they showed it my BS detector was kind of going off. But, like you said, for the purposes of the narrative, it’s fine. I just would take it with a grain of salt if this were sold as a 100 percent true story.

Nick: Well according to this week’s Entertainment Weekly, Wild is the most accurate biography of the many films currently in theaters. It says the one thing that is false was when Cheryl was driven to the desert by another female hiker when it was actually a man who did this. The reasoning for the switch was because the woman was a cameo of the real Cheryl Strayed. But I was curious if her book, which I have not read, is somewhat exaggerated. I only say that for how ridiculous some of it seems when given in the film.

Dustin: My mom read the book and met Cheryl Strayed, but I haven’t read it. She said one of her friends tried to read it, but gave up because she thought Cheryl came off as too self-absorbed. I said, “You mean someone who wrote a book about herself comes off as self-absorbed?!” I guess if no one was around other than Cheryl to witness everything, it would be hard to prove otherwise. But I have a hard time believing it is the most accurate biography currently in theaters. Did the writer of that EW article see Taken 3: TAK3N?

"It ends here." One can only hope

Nick: I do not know, but TAK3N was not involved in the article, but Selma was and that movie looks great.

One problem I have when watching films is judging actors. It’s easy at times, but also confusing at other times. I feel that Reese Witherspoon will be nominated for an Oscar, which I don’t care about to be honest, but it seems like she would just be nominated because She Is Reese Witherspoon and she has a fantastic track record. Many people could have performed her role and done just as good of a job. So yes, Reese did a good job. But Laura Dern on the other hand, as Cheryl’s mother, was fantastic and I couldn’t imagine a single other person in that part. She was impeccable. I was truly swayed by her and every single one of her lines brought some level of profoundness that lifted the material to something more memorable.

Dustin: This movie was Oscar bait through-and-through. I imagine it’ll be nominated for every relevant category.

Nick: Total Oscar bait. Was thinking it throughout the whole movie. Funny enough it was a crossword answer the next day! Any film that is a biography released in December or early January is an automatic nomination to the Oscar-bait category. We argued about whether or not Captain Phillips was Oscar bait, which it started off by being in the category, but hey, I also think it was nominated for five or so Oscars! Who called it, Son?!

Wild is always fascinating, sometimes because of the story, but mostly through its superb technical aspects and the director, Jean-Marc Valle, behind them.