Review: Wild

"I'm lonelier in my real life than I am out here," Cheryl Strayed (Reese Witherspoon) confesses at one point in Wild, the true account of her 1,100-mile hike on the Pacific Crest Trail, from the Mexican border to the mountains of Oregon. Solitude often breeds fortitude, and Wild proves itself an ultimately touching, if occasionally flawed, addition to the canon of films depicting individuals who lose themselves in order to renew themselves.

Cheryl's hike serves as both an exorcism and a redemption song. Her mother Bobbi's (Laura Dern) death has unmoored her, sending her on a downward spiral of sex and drug addiction. Realising she has ruined her marriage and the better part of her life, she embarks on the journey for which she is initially ill-equipped. Her cumbersome backpack, later dubbed "the Monster," weighs probably twice her body weight - visually, it almost looks like the petite Witherspoon strapped an 18 wheeler onto her back - but is symbolic of the emotional baggage she will be shedding along the way.

Her resilience and determination carry her through all manner of terrain, through near starvation and dehydration, through the constant pain and injury, somehow preventing her from succumbing to the inner voice constantly reminding her, "You can quit anytime." She encounters support along the way - other hikers she meets on the trail, strangers who provide her with a hot meal and a shower, drivers who offer her a lift, the care packages from her still supportive ex-husband (Thomas Sadoski) - though the journey is not without its moments of humour (a journalist mistaking her for "a lady hobo") or danger (two hikers who emit predatory vibes).

Along the way, she recalls moments from her life - most importantly, the ones she shared with her mother, who is gradually revealed to be a survivor herself - a woman who escaped an abusive marriage and raised two kids on her own. Just when she begins her second act - going back to school to earn a bachelor's degree - she's hit with the devastating diagnosis. Yet she taught her daughter "to find your best self and hold on to it." She doesn't regret her abusive marriage - how can she if it gave her two beautiful children? Dern is the film's guiding force, which may be an odd statement considering Witherspoon is front and center. Yet Wild hinges on Dern's indelible portrait of a woman whose happiness was hard won, a mother who is proud that her daughter has surpassed her in sophistication and intelligence even if she didn't realise "it would hurt sometimes." Cheryl's journey is less about self-discovery than self-recovery, a means of walking back to the woman her mother thought she was.

It takes nothing away from Witherspoon's excellent performance to say that Dern could have easily taken on this role had she been 10 years younger. Witherspoon evokes Dern's brand of grit, vulnerability, and emotional accessibility, keeping the audience firmly engaged. It's also the first time in a very long while, if ever, that Witherspoon has essayed a strongly sexual woman. John Curran's Tracks charted a similar tale, with Mia Wasikowska turning in a reliably fine portrayal of Robyn Davidson, who trekked across 1,700 miles of the Australian desert using camels. Strayed's account is a lustier affair - she packs condoms for the trail - and unapologetically so. Witherspoon weaves Cheryl's sexuality and feminism (she observes the rarity of female hikers is because women can't walk out on their lives and their kids) into the overall portrait of a well-written, complicated woman.

Director Jean-Marc Vallée constructs a fragmentary narrative, maneuvering from past to present with varied success. The transitions can be smooth, such as a song jogging a memory, but also awkward as in a particular cutaway to a sex scene. Still, his overall strong direction, Nick Hornby's judicious adaptation, Yves Belanger's cinematography, and the two leading ladies conspire to create an inspiring work that achieves a genuine sense of poetry in its final minutes.

Wild

Directed by: Jean-Marc Vallée

Written by: Nick Hornby; adapted from Cheryl Strayed's memoir Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail

Starring: Reese Witherspoon, Laura Dern, Gaby Hoffman, Thomas Sadoski, Keene McRae, Michiel Huisman