Wild the Movie

The Academy Award nominations were announced this past week.  Reese Witherspoon has been nominated for Best Actress for her work in the film, Wild.  I recently saw the movie as an event with an organization I’m involved in called The Impact Guild.  The event was to see the movie together then have a thoughtful discussion about the movie and some of it’s topics.  I have really enjoyed the reflective careful discussions while participating in The Impact Guild’s events so this was a natural fit for me.

Having read the book two years prior, I did not predict my response to this movie would be so incredibly powerful.  Had I not read the book intently enough?  Did I miss messages while reading?  Did the producers lean more heavily on certain aspects than did the novel?  Perhaps visual is so much more sensory for me.  I had the most intense reaction to this movie, I was physically unable to stay for the discussion.  I literally ran out of the theater and directly home to the comfort of my people.

I first wrote about the novel, Wild in October 2012.  In reading what I wrote back then, I am noticing how different the two experiences were for me.  Typically, a movie has a hard time holding up a novel’s reputation. Movies are hard pressed to define characters and relationships in a two hour film quite the way a writer can over several hundred pages.  I was more moved by her relationship with her mother and brother during the film. As well as more concerned for her overall safety alone in the woods during the film.  It seemed to me there was less dialog in this film that most.  With so much of the dialog occurring in her head or as a memory it was dominantly in her facial expressions which told the story and said it all in most scenes.  I believe Reese did a stellar job.  Either way, by film or book, Cheryl Strayed’s story is worth knowing.

Have you all seen the movie?  What did you think?