Tonight I went and saw the movie Wild with Reese Witherspoon. I highly recommend you seeing it if it is showing in your town. In this movie, Witherspoon plays the character of Cheryl Strayed. Strayed is a broken woman. She has lost everything in her life, her parents, brother, husband and the one friend she has is exasperated with her.
In this film, you will feel every emotion within your reach. Strayed takes to the Pacific Crest Trail to "walk back to the woman her mother raised her to be." During her journey, she wants to face all her demons. She starts in Southern California and goes all the way to Ft. Hood, Oregon, 1,100 miles in just more than three months.
Before embarking on this hike, her life was in shambles. She was addicted to sex, drugs and trouble. Strayed was still dealing with the death of her mother and trying to make sense of her life. Be warned, you will cry, unless you're dead inside. It also has some very funny moments. You really have to be paying attention, they are thrown in during random moments.
The film goes back and forth between her hike and memories, mostly as a child. In these, you can see the incomparable Lara Dern as Strayed's mother. It is never voiced, but Dern seems manic in most scenes. I don't know if they were trying to convey her that way, or if it just came across like that, but Dern was spectacular in this role.
The landscape was amazing. It truly does take you on a journey with Strayed and makes me rethink all I have done. This film was Witherspoon's best work since Walk The Line, in my opinion. She doesn't mind to get in there and show the true grit and emotion when playing a real person. She embodies everything about that individual and brings them to life on screen.
In the end, Strayed knows where she has been and faced her demons. While she may not know exactly where she is going, she knows that her expedition has given her the clarity she needed to accept the demons in her past. With this, she is able to enter into the next phase of her life unencumbered.
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