It's no secret that I really enjoyed and admired Cheryl Strayed's Wild and I took every opportunity to endorse and recommend it. I'm not the type of purist who gets upset over every film adaptation of a good book, and I was actually pretty excited to see 'Wild' when I heard Reese Witherspoon would be the star. I had the opportunity to see it over my holiday vacation and I was pretty happy with the results.
My biggest concern going into it was that it would become too much of a "feel-good" movie; part of what I really loved about the book was that it narrated a very inspirational story while simultaneously exploring an incredibly dark and difficult time in Strayed's life, and the writer/director did a great job of never allowing the film to indulge in those 'Eat, Pray, Love'-type moments. The hike through the Pacific Crest Trail was about healing, not redemption for Strayed, in real life and as a movie character.
My husband, who had no exposure to the book, found the timeline a bit confusing, which I agreed with although I thought it was effective in that the flashbacks weren't functioning just as narrative pinpoints but also as Strayed's inner dialogue while hiking, which made the somewhat chaotic and even repetitive nature of them work, at least for me.
I'll add an additional big kudos to the film for maintaining the really important literary references in the book, which were another thing that I absolutely loved about it. There is a crazy number of shots of Reese Witherspoon reading books, and even more discussions about books between her and Laura Dern, who plays Strayed's mother. It could easily have been dismissed as not translating well to film and been left out, which would have been a missed opportunity to develop those characters and their relationship, and I was impressed with how organically it was incorporated.
