When we're first introduced to Cheryl Strayed in Wild she's feebly ill-equipped and unprepared for the 2,650-mile Pacific Crest Trail trek she's undertaken. She's also played by Reese Witherspoon. Boy, could she be any more instinctively irritable? And yet, despite all of that (or, more accurately, because of it), over the film she develops - physically and mentally - into a new person, winning the audience just as she spiritually redeems herself from her troubled past (which is, as the motivation for the whole trek, a mystery in itself). After Dallas Buyers Club dominated the acting categories of last years awards season itd be easy to think Jean-Marc Vallée was a director who was getting by more on smart casting that his own actual skill behind the camera. And while his latest, Wild, does benefit from Witherspoon in a role that isnt just relying on her looks, Vallée is certainly in control, showing he is as essential in giving what could be sappy message movies an edge as his actors are - it's his strong eye that makes Strayed's journey so cathartic. The film has been trumpeted as a major feminist piece, and while it's certainly refreshing to see a performance as mentally open as Witherspoon's, the film is more a humanist story. The overall message of learning from your mistakes and moving past them is a universal one, which applies irrespective of gender (or whatever else).
