6. Nick Hornby's Wild Script Made A True Story Even More Tragic
Cheryl Strayed's Wild: From Lost To Found On The Pacific Crest Trail is not an easy book to read. And, subsequently, the film adaptation is not an easy movie to watch. One might be a little worse than the other, though, because whilst the memoir is an emotional rollercoaster (about Strayed's personal journey across the Mojave Desert and beyond), the film is... something else. After the death of her mother, with whom she was extremely close, Strayed began using heroin and having promiscuous sex, which understandably lead to the dissolution of her marriage. When the book was adapted to film in 2014, starring Reese Witherspoon as Strayed, they didn't leave out any of the gory details. In fact, they put a load more in. High Fidelity writer Nick Hornby's screenplay managed to make things seem even worse than they really were. Condensing years of Strayed's life and nearly 400 pages into 115-minute film meant changing a few things: like depicting her promiscuity not through sleeping around, but having a threesome in an alleyway, amongst other things. Which never actually happened.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
