OVP: Wild (2014)

Film: Wild (2014)
Stars: Reese Witherspoon, Laura Dern, Thomas Sadoski
Director: Jean-Marc Vallee
Oscar History: 2 nominations (Best Actress-Reese Withersoon, Supporting Actress-Laura Dern)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 5/5 stars

It seems fitting that a film about the rockiness of a journey star Reese Witherspoon, doesn't it, since we've been on a bit of a ride with her for the past couple of decades?  She's gone from standout parts in teen films like Cruel Intentions and Election to America's Sweetheart in Legally Blonde and Sweet Home Alabama to an Oscar winner in Walk the Line to a series of really awful movies in the wake of that win, and finally that demure mugshot which led to her finally deciding that it was time to rehabilitate her onscreen image, leading to supporting (gasp-a movie star in supporting, it must be serious!) roles in Mud and Inherent Vice, and finally an onscreen triumph here in Wild.  She might always have a few naysayers taking her on, but if something this wonderfully-realized and affective doesn't catch your attention, I doubt you were much of a Reese-enthusiast to begin with; this is too good to say anything other than "Reese is back!"

(Spoilers Ahead) The film, based on the best-selling memoirs by Cheryl Strayed, looks on the surface to be a tale of survival, and it is, but not in the conventional sense.  Most films where a person takes on the wilderness is rarely just about that fight, but here it truly isn't.  The reality is that aside from figuring out a way to carry around her backpack and running into occasionally awful human beings on her path, we see little of the struggles that Cheryl actually experiences in terms of fighting against nature.  The fighting is more internal, her struggles to come to grips with her life in the wake of incredible tragedy and a series of horrible decisions.

The film cuts back-and-forth from the present to the past, with Cheryl's mother Bobbi (Dern) being an integral part of Cheryl's initial upbringing.  Cheryl has an incredible amount of love for her mother, though she rarely understands her motives, and there's something sort of beautiful and subtle about the way that Jean-Marc Vallee (who redeems himself almost universally from the dreadful Dallas Buyers Club with this film) slowly reveals to us that Cheryl also doesn't understand her own actions at first.  There's something completely authentic in that-the way that we judge others quite regularly but rarely have time to judge ourselves in the same sort of fashion.  This entire movie, though, is crowded with these types of touches.

You see that in the way that love is portrayed in the film.  We see, for example, a man that clearly Cheryl deeply admires in her husband Paul (Sadoski) but whom she's never really loved in a proper way.  You also see that in the way that Cheryl reacts to her mother's cancer, finding in that the complete unfairness of growing older.  The thing I absolutely adored about these conundrums is that it deals with something that we rarely see onscreen: worry about love ending when we have no say in the matter.  Not just love with one person, but love in general, that you're about to be done.  When the film commences Cheryl is without the love of her life (her mother), has shown a complete lack of connection to any other people, including her best friend and her husband, and it may be safe to say that she doesn't love anyone, and that no one loves her in a way that matters to her.  This is something that we saw a bit of in The Homesman earlier this year, but by-and-large we don't get it very often, and that's a shame because for many people, the first people they end up loving (their parents) may be the only ones they get that privilege with, and it's a terrifying thought when that parent disappears before you have another person (a spouse, a child) that you can count on to say those three little words.

You see Cheryl explore that loneliness in the way that she is so fiercely independent onscreen.  We see her most at-home with strangers.  Even sex scenes lose all of their allure as she seems completely isolated (there's a very nice, handsome man whom she makes love to in the middle of the film that in ANY other picture we would have heard back from, but here it's just another stop as she figures out what the hell her life is going to mean with her mother no longer a part of it) from the intimacy of them.  This is a story that I haven't seen before onscreen, particularly with a female lead, and I can instantly see why this was such a major bestseller as a book.

Before I go, I'd be remiss if I didn't at least mention that Dern is very much Witherspoon's equal onscreen, though she's far subtler than I expected and I kind of get why the awards love hasn't been able to land for her in the way it seemed on-paper (comeback star, former nominee, dying of cancer, martyr with a heart of gold).  There's this absolutely perfect scene after Dern realizes that she's about to die that just sank into me.  She starts mumbling to her daughter, who cannot handle what has just happened and is making the news about her, which her mother has enabled for years.  Dern's Bobbi talks about how she's always been a mother, a wife, a daughter, but never been herself.  She always thought she'd have time.  Most of these types of scenes result in a large change in behavior, but she doesn't do that, never chastising her daughter for being selfish in focusing on herself.  Instead, she just sort of has her brief moment of "what did my life mean?" with her daughter trying to focus on something more present.  These brief interactions are wonderful, and I have to say that it's incredibly affecting because it's very rare to see a maternal sort of bond of this nature with a daughter-usually these sorts of stories revolve around men's issues with their fathers rather than the tales lacking a Y-chromosome.

The film ends with a bit of an uplifter, and we thankfully get a bit of a reprieve from Cheryl's loneliness and Bobbi's regrets, but they sit there as you drive home in your car.  This is a movie that you'll learn something new from as you get older, and your worldview shifts from that of Cheryl to that of Bobbi, but the sense of isolation and wonder at where you'll head next and when the journey will end, that's universal.  The movie may look like Into the Wild or 127 Hours, but that's just the scenery.  Wild takes you much, much higher.