Wild -nf

***

We did not choose to go to see this thousand mile trek when it was in the movie theatres but we thought we would give it a try at home via Netflix. What we saw was an admirable performance by Reese Witherspoon, who occupies the screen for just about the entire 1 hour and 55 minutes as her character walks a thousand miles over the entire Pacific Crest Trail by herself from Mexico to Canada. She does this with having little experience in hiking. We see her have some brief encounters with people she meets along the way but she mainly has short flashbacks of her past. She is taking this trip to clear her head of her mother’s death and her own addiction and depression as well as her breakup with her husband because of her promiscuity. It is heart wrenching as she recalls her closeness to her mother as a child and her mother’s dying days of cancer. There is great beauty as we see the magnificent scenery through which she travels. The cinematography of this film is outstanding. It is even more amazing that this is a true story actually lived by a woman by the name of Cheryl Strayed, who wrote about her journey in a very successful book that is the source of this movie. There is no complicated plot with a resolution. “It is what it is.” You can decide if this three month journey sounds like it is worth nearly two hours of your time. (2015)