Outward and Inward: The Solitary Trail of Wild

“That which doesn't kill us, makes us stronger.” I’m not sure if Nietzsche liked to hike the wilderness, but it’s a phrase that’s hard to shake when considering the odyssey of Wild, based on the memoir of Cheryl Strayed.

The death of Strayed’s mother from cancer sent her into a downward spiral of heroin and sex, an abyss she chose to climb out of by hiking the thousand-plus miles of the Pacific Crest Trail. Reese Witherspoon produces and stars as Strayed, easily her strongest performance since Walk the Line. Director Jean-Marc Vallée (Dallas Buyers Club) uses the vast wilderness landscapes as contrast to Strayed’s deeply interior journey of self-reclamation. When we first see her, Witherspoon’s gazing on the ruin of a toenail, visceral evidence of how woefully unprepared she is for the crucible of the wild. Vallée and screenwriter Nick Hornby uses a time-hopping flashback structure to push deeper into Strayed’s collapsing past as she trudges further along the ever-changing labyrinth of the uncertain trail.

I didn't read Wild, so I can only assess the film on its own terms, though the reaction has seemed a bit divisive between book readers - who mostly love it - and non-readers who seem a bit more detached. Wild has to be appreciated as the bravely solitary baring of a fragile soul. Witherspoon is in nearly every scene and carries the weight of the film with enough emotional heft to rival her enormous backpack. It's refreshing to see an actress deconstruct their persona a bit, and play someone with a flawed past that drags behind them like so many footprints. With so much dependent on flashback, she does a solid and convincing job of embodying someone trying to find a way to close old wounds and look in the mirror again. She may not face the kind of immediate jeopardy of films such as Deliverance or 127 Hours, but Witherspoon realistically shoulders past potential perils with a convincing mix of flint and vulnerability, determined to keep moving forward.

Laura Dern is terrific in the fleeting scenes as Strayed's mother, making it easy to see the hole in the world her passing would leave. Wild may seem less frenetic than Vallée's attention-getting Dallas Buyer's Club, but it would be a mistake to think he's turned down the burner. He's drawn to tormented souls in search of salvation, and deserves credit for making a film that dares to be quiet and reflective at times, to give Cheryl Strayed - and Reese Witherspoon - the time and space to find themselves in the untamed expanse of nature, where solitude is the mirror you can't look away from.