Ryan Bachman
J. Jackson
Exploring the Humanities
28 January 2015
Wild
Bored on a Thursday night I was in need of something to do, so I ended up in Rogers at 10pm in an empty theater waiting for the movie Wild to start. I did not know what the movie was about going into the theater, but from looking at the poster I expected to see a movie about a woman and the difficulties she has on an extreme hike through the mountains. Wild is a biographical, drama directed by Jean Marc Vallee that follows the main character Cheryl Strayed, played by Reese Witherspoon, on a trek across the Pacific Crest Trail, that goes from Mexico all the way up through Washington. The movie is much more than just that though. The movie shows how Cheryl, who had lost all hope as a result of losing her mother, the separation from her husband, and years of reckless behavior using drugs and alcohol, makes a rash decision to seek out and find herself by hiking over 1,000 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail. I believe in this movie they used the hike as an extended metaphor of Strayed’s life. The trail matched Strayed with many great obstacles like huge jagged rocks, hot temperatures, blizzards, and water tanks that were empty, just like her life had so far. Unlike her life to this moment she decided not to run away from these problems and take the easy way out. She learned to fight through these battles and make the most of what was thrown at her. Strayed by the end of this movie became the women her