Wild: Blu-ray Review
The Movie:
Cheryl Strayed (Reese Witherspoon) makes a rash decision to embark on a challenging trek across the Pacific Crest Trail. With absolutely no experience, she sets out to hike more than a thousand miles all on her own — in what becomes an unforgettable journey of transformation and redemption that strengthens and ultimately heals her.
The film starts out rather quickly without little to no explanation of what is going on and instead gives you little flashbacks here and there to who Cheryl Strayed once was. The basic premise of the film is about self discovery. She goes on this long hike after experiencing a life changing moment in her life and at times it almost seems like she is punishing herself because of not really being a good person. Witherspoon’s acting ability hasn’t faltered one bit and she puts out a really solid performance that accentuates a lot of emotion. With all of her character’s faults and bad choices there were moments where you felt sympathy for her in a way. Maybe not completely but there were some moments. The overall story was inspiring and compelling but I feel like the execution didn’t exactly work. There was something missing that I couldn’t really put my finger on but the only way that I can describe it is uneventful. The film “Into The Wild” followed somewhat of the same premise with a person out on a trek except that film actually had moments where the character’s life was being threatened to a degree. This film however teased those kind of moments but never actually followed through. There were plenty of potential occasions that would’ve provided some “edge of your seat” moments but ended up feeling lackluster. I had a little problem with the ending as well. Usually you have a definite final scene that gives you closure to the film but in this case instead of showing you and letting it play out they decided to just have Cheryl TALK about what her future holds. To me it felt like it made the film feel incomplete. The movie wasn’t horrible, it was just….there. Even with that though, the film is still worth checking out if you’re into “journey” driven films. 7/10
Special Features:
Deleted Scenes – A few scenes here that are fairly decent with optional commentary.
The Real Cheryl Strayed – A look at the real life person that the film was based on.
The Real Location is the Best Location – This feature focuses on some of the actual locations used during filming.
How Much Does a Monster Weigh? – This one concentrates on the backpack that Cheryl lugs around.
The Pacific Crest Trail Interactive Map – A cool map that actually shows you the route that Cheryl took on her trek.
Behind The Scenes Featurettes – 7 featurettes that go in depth about adapting the book into a film and the trials that they all went through.
Experiencing the PCT: A Special Message from Cheryl Strayed – Cheryl talks a bit about the preservation of the PCT and what people can do to help.
Audio Commentary by Jean-Marc Vallée, Bruna Papandrea and David Greenbaum
