Fans of Cheryl Strayed likely come away from this movie feeling reasonably content with the outcome. There's no challenge to the end product or hope for anything more. Reese Witherspoon is a pretty personification that many can put their hopes and dreams and selves into and flutter away to the pretty pictures of mountains for a few fleeting moments in their day. For the rest of us, however, the movie is quite unmemorable and intangible. If anything, we simply watch Strayed (Witherspoon) walk around like an entitled, annoyed bitch for two hours, getting into trouble, doing stupid things, hurting anyone close to her, and then crying over spill milk again and again. And all along there's this audacious overtone telling us we should be feeling sorry for Strayed and her struggles
give me a break.
It's clear Jean-Marc Vallee wanted to produce an Oscar-season prospect, not an accurate or truly vulnerable adaptation. Coming off his success with Dallas Buyers Club, Vallee wanted to shift momentum to a prettier landscape and fill in the rest with exhausting flashbacks for back story. I can visualize what he was aiming for, and it could have been a shoe-in for best picture or certainly best actress. Unfortunately the end product missed the target by thousands of miles. Wild is tiresome, disjointed and certainly not Oscar-worthy material. The big difference between the two films is that Dallas was based on a tremendous story, one of transformation and growth, which is why it resonated so well with audiences. Wild is not a tremendous story, not even a good one, and simply takes the same approach as another vain diatribe, "Eat Pray Love." Essentially, a struggling female writer feels trapped in her life and decides to try something extreme, get herself out of this rut and find purpose (then shockingly decides to write a book about it and capitalize off all the people who want to do the same. CRAZY!). I won't argue that Strayed didn't have a rough go at it. With the death of her mother, her rotten coping mechanisms through anonymous sex and heroin use, the consequent failure of her marriage and the downward spiral of her life, Strayed was headed nowhere before she found the path of the PCT. But that does not excuse how ego-driven and basic Wild is (and is told).
Strayed is the ugliest character in the story. Aside from a terrible voice-over at the end (seriously, WTF was that?), Strayed truly does not change physically, emotionally or in her relationships from beginning to end. Yet somehow the film goes out of its way to make her a hero, innocent and a victim in this crazy world around her. We see this when all the rangers, hikers, townsfolk, even customers at the diner she's waiting at all want to rape her or take advantage. Apparently every man in the 90s was absolutely horrible (even the husband she was cheating on who drove across the country to fetch her out of a drug den and save her life. Hrm ). The most ironic part is how Strayed described in the book that she wanted to sleep with nearly every man that crossed her path (including most men on the trail), and at times she said she had to hold herself back. And that's the worst part of Wild, the blatant, phony feminist propaganda. Feminism is so trendy in pop culture right now that everyone is claiming they're a part of the cause. But it's a word that is completely misappropriated and misused, especially by quite terrible role models such as Cheryl Strayed. She is a woman who wants to desperately be considered a feminist that she adjusts her story to justify her mistakes, even throwing in the line, "I am a feminist," into the movie to frantically convince us. But she's not. Being a selfish, inconsiderate asshole doesn't make you a feminist or a martyr. It makes you a selfish, inconsiderate asshole, and not a person the viewer should want to feel compassion for.
To be honest, one of the best parts of the book was the relationships and perspectives of others who Strayed came across on the trail. We got to hear what they were going through, not just getting hit over the head by a whiny Witherspoon. Yet the theatrical version (again) only focuses on Cheryl and her theoretical struggle with life (i.e. herself). We totally skip over all the other people who in my opinion were the 'therapists' and friends who helped Cheryl to grow and guide her change into a new woman and move beyond her horrible past.
If the story is intended to be one about personal growth and finding oneself, then there is none of that here in this adaptation. For a 15-minute montage Reese is bitching and moaning about hiking and her life, then suddenly we're at the end of the trek and she's telling us about how happy-ever-after things are going to be in the future. It was like Vallee just said, "I'm over it," and decided to end the terrible experiment. By the end of this movie I find myself really caring less about Strayed (even distrusting her more since she signed off on this thing), and I'm insulted by her story and embarrassed that so many embrace her and what she did as some sort of feminist martyrdom. I think Strayed was a stupid girl who did stupid things, and out of sheer blonde luck was able to survive a trek on her own. Even more luck, she was able to turn that mediocre story into millions of dollars in her pocket. So good for her. It's not a terrible movie, just a terrible story about a terrible person who wants us all to believe she's a saint. I don't buy it, and unfortunately I rented the movie and bought the book.
It's clear Jean-Marc Vallee wanted to produce an Oscar-season prospect, not an accurate or truly vulnerable adaptation. Coming off his success with Dallas Buyers Club, Vallee wanted to shift momentum to a prettier landscape and fill in the rest with exhausting flashbacks for back story. I can visualize what he was aiming for, and it could have been a shoe-in for best picture or certainly best actress. Unfortunately the end product missed the target by thousands of miles. Wild is tiresome, disjointed and certainly not Oscar-worthy material. The big difference between the two films is that Dallas was based on a tremendous story, one of transformation and growth, which is why it resonated so well with audiences. Wild is not a tremendous story, not even a good one, and simply takes the same approach as another vain diatribe, "Eat Pray Love." Essentially, a struggling female writer feels trapped in her life and decides to try something extreme, get herself out of this rut and find purpose (then shockingly decides to write a book about it and capitalize off all the people who want to do the same. CRAZY!). I won't argue that Strayed didn't have a rough go at it. With the death of her mother, her rotten coping mechanisms through anonymous sex and heroin use, the consequent failure of her marriage and the downward spiral of her life, Strayed was headed nowhere before she found the path of the PCT. But that does not excuse how ego-driven and basic Wild is (and is told).
Strayed is the ugliest character in the story. Aside from a terrible voice-over at the end (seriously, WTF was that?), Strayed truly does not change physically, emotionally or in her relationships from beginning to end. Yet somehow the film goes out of its way to make her a hero, innocent and a victim in this crazy world around her. We see this when all the rangers, hikers, townsfolk, even customers at the diner she's waiting at all want to rape her or take advantage. Apparently every man in the 90s was absolutely horrible (even the husband she was cheating on who drove across the country to fetch her out of a drug den and save her life. Hrm ). The most ironic part is how Strayed described in the book that she wanted to sleep with nearly every man that crossed her path (including most men on the trail), and at times she said she had to hold herself back. And that's the worst part of Wild, the blatant, phony feminist propaganda. Feminism is so trendy in pop culture right now that everyone is claiming they're a part of the cause. But it's a word that is completely misappropriated and misused, especially by quite terrible role models such as Cheryl Strayed. She is a woman who wants to desperately be considered a feminist that she adjusts her story to justify her mistakes, even throwing in the line, "I am a feminist," into the movie to frantically convince us. But she's not. Being a selfish, inconsiderate asshole doesn't make you a feminist or a martyr. It makes you a selfish, inconsiderate asshole, and not a person the viewer should want to feel compassion for.
To be honest, one of the best parts of the book was the relationships and perspectives of others who Strayed came across on the trail. We got to hear what they were going through, not just getting hit over the head by a whiny Witherspoon. Yet the theatrical version (again) only focuses on Cheryl and her theoretical struggle with life (i.e. herself). We totally skip over all the other people who in my opinion were the 'therapists' and friends who helped Cheryl to grow and guide her change into a new woman and move beyond her horrible past.
If the story is intended to be one about personal growth and finding oneself, then there is none of that here in this adaptation. For a 15-minute montage Reese is bitching and moaning about hiking and her life, then suddenly we're at the end of the trek and she's telling us about how happy-ever-after things are going to be in the future. It was like Vallee just said, "I'm over it," and decided to end the terrible experiment. By the end of this movie I find myself really caring less about Strayed (even distrusting her more since she signed off on this thing), and I'm insulted by her story and embarrassed that so many embrace her and what she did as some sort of feminist martyrdom. I think Strayed was a stupid girl who did stupid things, and out of sheer blonde luck was able to survive a trek on her own. Even more luck, she was able to turn that mediocre story into millions of dollars in her pocket. So good for her. It's not a terrible movie, just a terrible story about a terrible person who wants us all to believe she's a saint. I don't buy it, and unfortunately I rented the movie and bought the book.