Wild is a Reese Witherspoon tour de force–an adroit film adaptation of Cheryl Strayed’s popular 2012 memoir of the same name, about a young woman who has lost her husband, her mother and herself, as she hikes the Pacific Crest Trail alone in an attempt at self redemption. I hope you’ll forgive me, though, for telling you I found it to be a little like Eat, Pray, Love, only without Oprah’s Favorite Things.

But while the biggest challenges Julia Roberts’ character seemed to face in Eat, Pray, Love were ennui and self absorption, Reese Witherpoon’s character in Wild has actually hit rock bottom, with no money, connections, family or sense of self. Her impetuous decision to backpack more than 1,000 miles of extreme terrain, with zero hiking experience, is life threateningly naive (read: deadly stupid) from the very beginning, and you can’t help but be intrigued by how she could possibly survive. You have to keep telling yourself “if she didn’t survive there would be no book and hence no movie, so something must work out in the end, but heaven knows what or how, so I must watch on.”

My issues with the film are small, and involve the choices of director Jean-Marc Vallee (Dallas Buyer’s Club). Reese Witherspoon’s emotions and flashbacks are mostly narrated in mumbly whispers that are hard to understand. I know they’re supposed to sound like thoughts, but in a theater, you can’t turn up the volume. And I wish more scenes had been completed through to resolution, rather than chopped up and tossed together like a Cobb salad. I understand that’s an artistic choice, but I lost patience with it. And finally, there’s the wrap up at the end, which is treated a little more off-handedly and summarily than the story deserves.

That being said, Reese Witherspoon will doubtless be nominated for an Oscar for her stellar performance. It’s hard to imagine any other actress capable of carrying an entire film, let alone an unwieldy backpack, on her shoulders as she did. If you’re a fan of introspective, finding yourself films, this is a must see.

Rated R

1 Hour 55 Minutes