1100-mile hike in ‘Wild’ not as moving as it wants to be

In the new movie “Wild,” Reese Witherspoon stars as a woman who deals with a series of personal crises by hiking a thousand mile trail alone.

Based on a best-selling memoir by Cheryl Strayed, “Wild” follows the novice hiker as she journeys up the West Coast on the Pacific Crest Trail. In ill-fitting boots and a way-too-heavy backpack, Strayed/Witherspoon takes over three months to accomplish her feat. But in the process, she comes to grip with her sorrow.

Reminiscent of movies like “127 Hours” and “Into the Wild,” “Wild” is an outdoors movie with an internal focus. About half the movie recounts her physical struggles on the trail – searing heat, rattlesnakes, threatening men, heavy snowfall. But the other half, the true heart of the film, is in Strayed’s head. In brief but frequent flashbacks, we see what’s troubling her – her dissolving marriage, for one thing, but most importantly, the sudden death of her mother at 45.

Strayed has to resolve her complicated feelings for her mother (played by Laura Dern) and her fury at a God or universe that would allow her Mom’s death to happen.

I’m sure that that internal struggle is important to Strayed’s life story, and is probably why the book was a big hit, but at least as far as the movie goes, her big epiphany doesn’t seem all that insightful.

I’m happy for her personally but, dramatically, there’s not that much there. Yes, like a lot of us, she feels guilty about not appreciating her Mom enough when she was alive, and yes, she learns not to beat herself up too much for the emotional tailspin she went into after that death. But those struggles and those lessons are not all that remarkable.

More remarkable, and perhaps more dramatic, is the hike itself – a woman with no experience, surviving a brutal trek across desert and mountains, almost entirely on her own.

Surprisingly, the movie shortchanges us on many of the specifics of that grueling hike in order to focus on her psychological demons.

Unfortunately, “Wild” is not detailed enough for us to revel in her physical accomplishment nor deep enough to make her demons truly harrowing. It’s a very competent movie, anchored by a terrific performance by Witherspoon, but it’s not quite as moving as it wants to be.