Wild

Positive—I would not consider this to be morally an extremely offensive film. Sex and drugs are depicted, but not as good things. They are what Reece Witherspoon’s character Cheryl Strayed is seeking redemption from. This is a redemption film where God and religion are not factors, a pilgrimage without religious trappings. Cheryl is fleeing memories of her abusive father, troubled brother and particularly her mother (or idealized memories of her, well played by Laura Dern) who has left her husband and was seeking to improve her life by attending college with Cheryl when cancer struck and killed her.

Cheryl escapes to the happiness she feels with heroin and casual sex, ending her own marriage (although the feelings will between the couple continue as he mails her packages at stops along her hike). She sees a book on the Pacific Crest Trail (running from Mexico to Canada) and decides to hike it. Like a pilgrimage, there is penance in the form of the beating her body takes from her boots and pack. Experienced hikers would break in their boots and equipment, before undertaking a trek of this type, avoiding various problems she encounters.

But this is a spiritual journey as much as a hike. Pain, heat, cold, solitude and various readings and poems, some of which sound a lot like greeting cards, carry her onward.

This pilgrimage has her encounter a community of hikers, often seekers like herself, as well as some ministerial figures that serve them, such as a man at a hostel who gives her advice on shrinking her pack. There are various metaphors for putting the past behind you and leaving your psychic burdens behind. Hikers reduce their baggage, even burning the portions of their guidebooks covering the parts of the trail that they have passed. As an attractive, if eventually bad smelling, woman on the trail, she often seems in danger from the men she encounters, although most of them turn out to be less scary than we first fear.

The mix of animals, including one or more foxes that strategically, if not mystically, reappear at various times, brings her to confront the memories of the horse that meant so much to her mother.

In addition to the camaraderie of the hikers, who manage to be together while sometimes getting on each other’s last nerves, there is also sixties-like camaraderie in an Oregon town with a Summer of Love styled music festival and a more positive, if non-marital, sexual encounter with a man she meets there. And eventually an encounter with a troubled child, his grandmother and a llama reduces her to tears.

She continues on in the face of pain, heat, snow and thirst, but, as the trip approaches its end, wonders what she is going to do next. The pilgrimage ends up at the gorgeously filmed “Bridge to the Gods” over the Columbia River. She tells us that she has become the woman her mother wanted her to be, with reconciliation with her brother, and it is not clear who else. There is also talk about how she would still have done all the bad stuff and needed to do so to get to her ultimate state.

As this is an autobiographical book and film, this is probably true, and good for her. Whether the film convincingly conveys exactly how and why this happens is another question. Do the many short and subliminal flashbacks work with the scenic grandeur, the internal monologues, the encounters and the soundtrack to leave us with some understanding of Cheryl’s spiritual journey? Is the journey convincing? I am not totally convinced, despite the quality acting and compelling travel.

And given that this film depicts a secular world where religion does not have a serious presence, what would a church have done different for Cheryl?
My Ratings: Moral rating: Average / Moviemaking quality: 4

Positive—Sorry you guys. But I find this film great. The story is dense, very real. The acting is very good, outstanding is my opinion. The production values are amazing, the photography, the music, the script. Everything. The plot is very interesting, and it’s based on the life of Cheryl Strayed, and that makes the film even more exciting.

Maybe, for some, the themes portrayed in the film can be offensive, but I mean, people face things like this all the time, and we only judge without knowing the truth, and people who face things like this need God more than ever.

I find the film outstanding, I love it from the beginning to the end, inspiring and Wild. The director of “Dallas Buyers Club” does it again. Reese Witherspoon and Laura Dern give the performances of their careers.
My Ratings: Moral rating: Good / Moviemaking quality: 5

Negative—The film had the chance to turn into a story of redemption and repentance, but decided to embrace pride and folly instead. Yes, we can learn from our errors, but to desire to repeat them if one had the chance? Repugnant.
My Ratings: Moral rating: Offensive / Moviemaking quality: 4