Thoughts on the movie 'Wild'

After sitting through the long, tedious movie 'Wild' my brain is almost as numb as my butt.  At 1 hour and 55 minutes, the movie isn't really as long as it seems.  It was directed by Jean-Marc Vallee from a script by Nick Hornby adapted from the memoir 'Wild: from Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail' by Cheryl Strayed and starring Reese Witherspoon as Ms. Strayed and Laura Dern as her mother.

Movie poster for 'Wild'.

Briefly, it is about hiking, extreme hiking, as therapy -- instead of the five stages of grief or the 12-steps of recovery.  Cheryl has lost her mother to cancer and her marriage to serial infidelity and heroin addiction.  So she decides to walk the 1,100 mile Pacific Crest Trail.  I lost count, but I think it took 94 days during which she encountered numerous catastrophes and became a better person.

The movie is scattered with quotes from Robert Frost, James Michener and many others.  The use of mumbled, incoherent voice-over and brief incoherent flashbacks leave the viewer confused and ultimately indifferent to Cheryl and her problems.

Witherspoon will obviously be in the running for the Oscar.  Laura Dern has already won the Gotham award for best supporting actress.  If you have a high threshold for boredom or a need to enhance your feminist credentials see this movie.  Otherwise, stay home and take a nap.

Movie: 'The Fault in Our Stars'

'The Fault in Our Stars' directed by Josh Boone is based on a much-loved (so they say) novel of the same name by John Green.

'The Fault in Our Stars' Poster with Shailene Woodley and Ansel Elgort

Hannah Grace Lancaster (Shailene Woodley) is a 16-year-old with thyroid cancer, so she's permanently tethered to an oxygen tank she carries in a wheeled backpack.  After some prodding from her parents (Laura Dern and Sam Trammell) Hannah starts going to support group meetings at the local church.  She meets Augustus 'Gus' Waters (Ansel Elgort) who is there to support his buddy, Isaac (Nat Wolff), who has lost one eye due to a tumor and has just found out that there's a tumor in the other eye that will cause him to be blind when it is removed.

After the meeting, Gus approaches Hannah and reveals that he had osteosarcoma, but is now cancer free after having most of one leg amputated -- he walks with a slight limp on a prosthetic leg.  During their tentative early friendship, Hannah and Gus exchange favorite books.  Hannah's is 'An Imperial Affliction' about a young girl with cancer.  The book just stops in the middle of a sentence and Hannah has unsuccessfully tried to contact the author, Van Houten, to find out what happened to the girl and her family after that abrupt ending.

Gus succeeds in contacting the author by email and receives a flippant reply that Van Houten can't reveal what happened 'in writing', but that he'll be glad to do it 'in person'.  Gus should 'drop by' if he is ever in Amsterdam.

Hannah wants desperately to go to Amsterdam to meet Van Houten.  Unfortunately, she used her wish from a 'make-a-wish' charity for a family trip to Disney World when she was 13.  

Needless to say, Hannah and Gus get to Amsterdam, fall in love and don't live happily ever after.  Bring extra tissues -- you may need them.

There are a few harrowing scenes of life with cancer, but life seems pretty great when you're in love and you've got good lighting and make-up.  Shailene Woodley gives an intelligent, sensitive performance as Hannah Grace; Laura Dern is indispensable as her mother; Ansel Elgort wrestles the poorly written, too-good-to-be-true Gus to a draw; and Nat Wolff is refreshing and effective as Isaac.

It doesn't make this film better or worse, but I just learned that Ansel Elgort was a student at the School of American Ballet when he was nine (he's now 20).