I told my friend what the movie was about and this is what was said right after:
Friend: so it's a movie about a girl who goes for a walk.
Me: yes, based on a shitty book.
What a great way to sell it!
I had always wanted to read the book, and I finally got around to it because I wanted to read it before I saw the movie. The book was terrible. I hated it. At the end of my review for this book, I wrote that I’m really hoping that they change the majority of things when it’s made for the screen. Now that I’ve said that, I don’t want to write a comparison review between the book and the movie. However, the only thing I will say is that it was kind of odd that the step-father and her own sister were left out of the movie.
Because this movie has had a limited release, I’ll add a blurb about the plot:
Cheryl Strayed (Reese Witherspoon) decided to hike 1000+ kilometers of the Pacific Coast Trail (from the Mexican boarder to the Canadian boarder through California, Oregon and Washington) alone, as a novice, on a whim because her mother had passed away and her marriage was ruined (due to her reckless behaviour). Her decision to go on this hike was rash, and I’m guessing it was for redemption or to get away from all her problems. As the title of the book says, I guess she needed to find herself.
Basically her hike served as a means of telling her story about the issues that came up that lead to her going on this hike in the first place. Her struggle during the hike (emotionally and physically) was lost, which was a shame because there was potential there to make it a gripping movie.
Lets start with the good…
The scenery was beautiful. The cinematography was good, but nothing to boast about.
This movie was pretty much all-things-Reese-Witherspoon. I think she did a good job as Cheryl. She talked the talk (not that the dialogue was great or anything), she walked the walk (pun intended), but I don’t think she really looked the look. Does she deserve an Academy Award? I wouldn’t say so. Does she deserve to be nominated? Maybe, I haven’t really seen a whole lot of other movies this year with female leads.
As for the character herself, she wasn’t likeable at all. She was a bitch to her mother and she ruined her relationship with her husband. I felt no connection to Cheryl; which is fine because obviously I haven’t been through what she’s been through, but that’s not the point. The way I see it, movies like this are supposed to be touching and inspiring. The first thing that comes to mind is The Impossible (2012), the true story about the family that was in Thailand when the tsunami hit. Thankfully, I’ve never been through that, but that was a touching and inspiring movie and I was actually invested in the wellbeing of the family.
When it comes to the bad, there aren’t specifics I can rag on, but that’s only because this movie was very one-note to begin with. It seems like it should be a movie with lots of highs and lows, but it flat-lined. I thought it had some good comedic timing, but to me, it wasn’t as funny as it seemed to be to others in the theatre. It did feel long when it was nearing the end as well. Overall, I didn’t love it, but much to my surprise, I didn’t hate it either.
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