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There’s a little bit of January left, so I’ve got a few more movies with positive vibes about new beginnings and fresh starts to help blunt the new-year blues.
Today: 2014’s Wild. Reese Witherspoon portrays real-life self-acknowledged fuckup Cheryl Strayed, who decided to reboot her damaged life by giving herself the challenge of hiking a thousand miles of the Pacific Crest Trail, along America’s West Coast.
This is a wonderful movie about a woman who gets to be as hugely, honkingly, humanly screwed up as men get to be on film, and who gets the breathing space to figure out her shit. There’s a terrific scene about literally whittling down the baggage we carry around in order to get to what really matters. This is a movie about accepting our mistakes and forgiving ourselves while being fully aware that these are hard things to do, and that they are also well worth doing.
I love this movie. I love that its spectacular landscapes are not only of the exterior natural world but also of the interior human spirit. I love that it concedes that women as worthy as men are of fresh starts from whatever rockbottom we find ourselves in.
US: stream on Direct TV; rent/buy on Prime and Apple TV
UK: stream on Disney+; rent/buy on Prime and Apple TV
See Wild at Letterboxd for more viewing options.
