Take a hike

In what proves to be her best role since scoring an Oscar for Walk the Line, Reese Witherspoon astonishes in Wild, director Jean-Marc Vallee’s follow up to last year’s Dallas Buyers Club.

Based on the memoir of Cheryl Strayed, Witherspoon plays the author, who took it upon herself to do a solo trek on the Pacific Crest Trail after some tragedies in her life. The film winds up not only being a fine showcase for Witherspoon, but a damned fine commercial for the PCT and those REI outdoor gear stores.

The film opens on the not-so-pleasant sight of Strayed losing a toenail in bloody fashion to a wrong-sized boot, already days into her trek. It then flashes back a bit to the beginning of her hike, and takes a non-chronological approach to its plot.

As she begins her walk, Strayed remembers moments from her childhood, marriage, and recent relationship with her mother (Laura Dern, shining in a small role). We discover that tragedy had led her to extreme promiscuity and heroin use. Her decision to hike the PCT is an attempt to get herself back on the right track.

Early in her march, in one of the film’s most powerful scenes, Strayed comes across a man driving a tractor (a fantastic W. Earl Brown) and is desperate for food. Vallee does a nice job creating a palpable sense of dread, and shows just how vulnerable a solo hiker could be, especially one lacking experience. The result of Strayed’s meeting with the tractor driver is great, surprising storytelling.

The characters Strayed meets along the way are mostly positive, although a couple of male hikers put a dent in the goodness of the human race. A quick meeting with a man writing about hobos provides the film’s funniest moment.

While being an uplifting film about redemption and Strayed’s personal triumphs, the movie also works as an authentic and informative film about the art of hiking. From Strayed’s struggles with her huge backpack, to her over-reliance on trail tanks for water, to her stopovers at community outposts along the trail, you get a sense of what you might experience on such an expedition. It also teaches you that buying your hiking boots at REI would be a smart move.

With a few exceptions, including her excellent turn in last year’s Mud, Witherspoon has been showing up in quite a few mediocre-to-lousy films (including this year’s Devil’s Knot). Before her Oscar glory and crap like Legally Blonde, Witherspoon was a reliable, off-the-beaten-track actress with projects like Freeway and Election.

Wild represents the sort of Witherspoon that got her a stellar reputation early in her career. Raw and edgy, there’s not a false note in her performance. You get a sense she put herself through some physical hell for the role. It’s not a “showy” role, but one that allows her to be understated and stripped down.

Dern breaks hearts as the eternally optimistic mom who attends college at the same time as her daughter and is thrown a nasty curveball, one that very much contributes to Strayed’s life missteps. Thomas Sadoski, as Strayed’s husband Paul, captures the essence of a person very much in love and struggling with his wife’s actions. He remains civil in the most unpleasant and challenging of circumstances.

Vallee and company made a great-looking movie here, covering all the terrains Strayed must’ve experienced on her hike, from deserts to the snowy Sierras. He complements the meditative movie with beautiful choices for his soundtrack, including Simon and Garfunkel’s “El Condor Pasa” and a stunning cover of the overlooked R.E.M. track “Walk Unafraid.” Many of the tracks sound as if they are being played on loudspeakers along the trail, their musical strains gently bouncing off the trees and echoing through the forests.

Witherspoon is a lock for an Oscar nomination, having already gotten a nod from the Golden Globes. She deserves the accolades. Hopefully, Wild and her small role in this year’s Inherent Vice are indicative of more adventurous choices in her future.