Reese Witherspoon: 5 Awesome Performances And 5 That Sucked

1. Cheryl Strayed - Wild (2014)

This is it. This is the movie where Reese gets to stop being a pretty doll moved around like a pawn in support of a man€™s story (except for Legally Blonde; that€™s an awesome woman€™s story) and gets to simply be a complex and fascinating character. Turns out this requires not giving a damn about vanity. Guess this is what it looks like when women get to be people on-screen. There€™s nothing necessarily shocking about that€ except how infrequently it occurs. The actress came roaring to life with this heartfelt biopic where she gives the performance of her career as heroin addict turned hiker Cheryl Strayed. Witherspoon embodies the physical and emotional travails of the grieving daughter/divorcée/druggie who leaves everything behind to hike the Pacific Crest Trail, trudging over a thousand miles from the Mojave Desert up to Canada. You watch the character go from studious schoolgirl to junkie to determined traveler. Each sequence allows Witherspoon to remarkably play against type, and not many other roles this year have held as much Oscar weight. This is without question the most finely tuned performances the actress has ever given. And now what of the performances that simply weren't up to scratch?