Harrowing true-life account of Cheryl Strayed’s 1,000-mile hike along the Pacific Crest Trail, adapted from her successful book. It’s fairly disturbing stuff, as the film chronicles her attempts to come to terms with bereavement, heroin addiction, abusive relationships and years of emotional pain. There’s a pessimistic message about men being predatory monsters. But then in Donald Trump’s America, maybe that’s the reality (see: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-45958023). The scenery is stunning. Music plays a big part, too, and I like the way Reese Witherspoon in the lead role often sings the songs on the soundtrack so that you seem to hear them on multiple levels. Simon & Garfunkel’s “El Cóndor Pasa (If I Could)” acts as a recurring theme. There’s inevitably a sense of catharsis as Strayed survives multiple threats, completes the trail and looks forward to the rest of her life. Laura Dern is especially likeable as her positive-but-doomed mother and the flashback sections detailing various stages of their relationship make up the most powerful parts of the film. Somehow it wasn’t as moving as it might have been, although it’s difficult to pinpoint why. Perhaps it’s because Strayed doesn’t emerge as a particularly sympathetic character. But then why should she? It’s to the film’s credit that she’s not portrayed as some kind of saint.
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