10 January 2015. Some people would compare Wild to Sean Penn's Into The Wild (2007) where a 24-year old student sells off his possessions and then hitchhikes to Alaska to live in the wilderness. Instead a closer comparative movies might be Kevin McDonald's Touching The Void (2003) about two climbers who brave the Andes Mountains or Sofia Coppola's Lost In Translation (2003) about an American television star who is hired to perform in a commercial in Japan. While Sean Penn directs a movie which in replete with fantastic and mesmerizing photography along with the performance by Emile Hirsh where both background and foreground seem to compete for attention, Sean-Mark Vallee has created a backdrop that enhances the performance of Reese Witherspoon on her 1,000 mile hike on the Pacific Crest Trail.
Wild might even be compared, in part, to the immersive, first person experience of horror classic The Blair Witch Project (1999) using a fusion of first and third person perspectives. Both McDonald and Coppola achieve in their movies like Wild are natural experiences that are artistically crafted to reflect ordinary but interesting events or sensations. The power of Vallee's direction is his ability to maintain engagement with the imagination of the audience. Surprisingly the move offers little in the way of drama ordinarily but quite the opposite. Vallee brings to more meaning to little experiences that we often take for granted as well as the novelty of the reasonable possibility of actual live experiences that we ourselves might be able to witness.
Vallee's use of flashbacks as actual recollections of memory is one of the most effective elements of this movie that seem to parallel the brief mental sensations we have in our own lives. Nick Hornby and Cheryl Strayed's screenplay from her own personal memoirs captures the audience in a slow unfolding story of personal discovery of the backstory to Reese Witherspoon's character through effective flashbacks while she is hiking in the present. With only one noticeable continuity error regarding a book cover and Reese Witherspoon's sudden break down and crying scene, this movie seems flawless in production.
In sum, Wild is a quality film experience along with a pertinent, relevant snapshot of life and endurance.
Wild might even be compared, in part, to the immersive, first person experience of horror classic The Blair Witch Project (1999) using a fusion of first and third person perspectives. Both McDonald and Coppola achieve in their movies like Wild are natural experiences that are artistically crafted to reflect ordinary but interesting events or sensations. The power of Vallee's direction is his ability to maintain engagement with the imagination of the audience. Surprisingly the move offers little in the way of drama ordinarily but quite the opposite. Vallee brings to more meaning to little experiences that we often take for granted as well as the novelty of the reasonable possibility of actual live experiences that we ourselves might be able to witness.
Vallee's use of flashbacks as actual recollections of memory is one of the most effective elements of this movie that seem to parallel the brief mental sensations we have in our own lives. Nick Hornby and Cheryl Strayed's screenplay from her own personal memoirs captures the audience in a slow unfolding story of personal discovery of the backstory to Reese Witherspoon's character through effective flashbacks while she is hiking in the present. With only one noticeable continuity error regarding a book cover and Reese Witherspoon's sudden break down and crying scene, this movie seems flawless in production.
In sum, Wild is a quality film experience along with a pertinent, relevant snapshot of life and endurance.