Wild

Director: Jean-Marc Vallée'
Starring: Reese Witherspoon, Laura Dern, Thomas Sadoski, Keene McRae, Micheal Huisma, Gaby Hoffmann, W. Earl Brown, Kevin Rankin, Brian Van Holt, Cliff DeYoung, Charles Baker, Cathryn de Prumn
Running Time: 115 min.
Rating: R

★★★★ (out of ★★★★)

Sight unseen, the general consensus going into Jean-Marc Vallée's Wild was that it seemed from its trailers and commercials to be another Into The Wild, but with Reese Witherspoon. And while merging one of my favorite films and actresses into a single project should be a sure bet, the constant comparisons instead made me uneasy. The imposing shadow of Sean Penn's 2007 film looms large enough to wonder how this could possibly step out of it when that similar story carries a power few biographical adaptations possess. Based on Cheryl Strayed's 2012 memoir, "Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail," its author and title give away that Strayed survived her journey, one of the details that separates her from Christopher McCandliss. Another is motivation. While he spontaneously left for the wilderness to escape a society he felt was stifling him, both finding and destroying himself in the process, Strayed's purpose was to escape herself and a tragedy with which she couldn't cope.

Unlike McCandliss, who never had any plans to return, Strayed's trip was always meant to be temporary, designed to give her the fuel to rebuild her life and reach a sort of self actualization. Other than that, their trajectories and the films inspired by them are so remarkably similar you'd think their paths crossed. Journal entries, flashbacks, voiceovers. It should be a screenwriting nightmare, but what worked then works again now. With Witherspoon holding us under her spell with her deepest, most meaningful work since winning the Oscar for Walk The Line, it succeeds on its own terms, somehow proving there is room for both. There are surface similarities, but Wild's style and execution sets it apart from any survival story preceding it.

Four years after the death of her mother, Bobbi (Laura Dern), Cheryl Strayed (Witherspoon) makes a decision to hike over a thousand miles of the Pacific Crest Trail to cleanse herself of the mess her life's become following that tragedy. Having cheated on her husband, Paul (Thomas Sadoski) and spiraled into an addictive pattern of drug abuse and promiscuity, she sees the trek as the only way to find the person her mother said she could someday be. And since drifting away from everyone from her life in Minnesota, including younger brother Leif (Keene McRae) and best friend Aimee (Gaby Hoffmann), it'll have to be done alone, braving the elements, but often aided and kept company by the memorable people she meets along the way. Well prepared and powered almost entirely by pure emotion, Cheryl frequently endangers herself to complete the hike, hoping to arrive on the other side with a renewed sense of clarity and purpose that's been absent since her mother's passing.

Rather than going the more expected route of telling Cheryl's backstory then leading up to the actual hike, the film does both at once, intercutting flashbacks of her life within the chronological depiction of the grueling hike. The danger she encounters often comes from unexpected places and people, even if she's seemingly always alert and well-prepared for what could come her way. Perhaps the biggest difference between this and Into The Wild is that Cheryl's rarely flying by the seat of her pants or falls prone to rash decision-making. And while her journey does come off as spontaneous to an extent, it looks to have been meticulously planned out and researched, which is noteworthy considering this takes place in a pre-internet era.

Watching her struggle with a near 60-pound backpack, it's fair to say she's come overprepared, as she finds out in a memorable scene in which a seasoned hiker helps her lose some worthless supplies to cut weight.  It's just the kind of mistake a really smart, but inexperienced person would make and it's in those small details that Nick Hornsby's script is sharpest. You'd hard-pressed to name another film in this genre where we see exactly what supplies are brought, then have them show up later to advance the plot. It also contains a rare instance of justifiable product placement, dispensing revelatory information about a company doing something great that we wouldn't otherwise have known. It doesn't come off as a cheap plug because it's true and worth hearing about. More importantly, we believe this character would react strongly to it.

As much as this is a battle against the elements and an endurance test for Strayed, her biggest fight is being a woman hiking alone. It's a surprisingly big deal, but not at all for the reasons you'd expect and certainly not because the story is some kind of feminist manifesto or fluffy self-help journey like Eat, Pray, Love.  It's important because there's hardly a scene when we're not sitting on pins and needles fearing she'll be raped or sexually assaulted. It may be a controversial observation to make but it's impossible to deny this underlying (sometimes even blatant) threat exists during just about every leg of her journey. Vallée deserves credit for not brushing it under the rug, often making the viewer uncomfortably squirm with each tension-filled encounter. And it's not that he's implying Cheryl can't take of herself, but the dangers of a woman, or anyone, hiking the PCT alone and relying of the kindness of strangers doesn't come without a certain level of risk that requires the traveler to keep their guard up at all times.

Despite only nine years separating Laura Dern and Reese Witherspoon, they're believable as mother and daughter throughout the stages of their characters' lives while also credibly passing for far younger than they actually are. These aren't interchangeable parts that could have been filled by any two actresses that have the chemistry and emotional shorthand they do, which is evident every time (and however briefly) they share the screen together. It's flippant to say any film or performance can really ever "capture" the grueling ordeal or immeasurable loss of losing a parent but these scenes would be brutally raw and uncomfortable watch for anyone.

In an odd way, the role of Cheryl Strayed falls right into Witherspoon's wheelhouse, especially when thinking back to all the tenacious characters she played that demonstrated an almost unfailing resourcefulness and determination. Strayed might be the first widely known hiker to overthink everything, approaching the entire journey overprepared and almost entirely too eager. It's the kind of single-minded dramatic character Reese has unfortunately (pardon the pun) strayed from in recent years, but thankfully revisits in an entirely different and challenging form here.

Those thinking she wouldn't dirty her hands in such a physically and emotionally demanding part is a classic misreading of her strengths, but given the lackluster rom-com projects she's taken over the past few years, you couldn't be blamed. It's fitting that the same director who helped cement Matthew McConaughey's comeback with his Oscar-winning role in Dallas Buyer's Club, succeeds again with Reese, only this time with a film twice as strong. Unlike that, it isn't a one-trick pony worth seeing only for the performances, containing way too much depth and visual splendor to be merely written off anything resembling a conventional biopic.

Dern's brief but impactful presence is both the source of its lightest and darkest moments as she's called upon with sometimes very little dialogue and only passing clips to depict the inner life and philosophy of this free-spirited single mom who isn't without her own flaws. The Oscar-nominated performance is in many ways a smaller-scaled counterpart to Patricia Arquette's winning one in the same category for Boyhood, but with Dern's Bobbi coming across as even more of a carefree hippie feeling her way around being a parent. While the impression will be that Witherspoon's role is a stretch for the actress, it's easy to imagine this character as an extension of Dern's actual personality. And since she delivers so much sincerity with relatively little, this added layer serves to only make her work resonate that much more.

One of my favorite aspects of any film is seeing a vaguely familiar or maybe even completely unknown actor or actress storm in for only a scene or two and just completely nail it, owning the movie in a matter of minutes. Given its narrative structure, Wild lends itself perfectly to such opportunities and doesn't disappoint, with a parade of actors lining up as Cheryl's various hike acquaintances and people from her past and present over the course of just under two hours. There's Kevin Rankin as a fellow hiker, Everclear's Art Alexakis as a tattoo artist and Breaking Bad's "Skinny Pete," Charles Baker, as a potentially dangerous hunter. To give them all away would spoil it, but the amount of cameos and single-scene performances from recognizable (if not necessarily identifiable) faces are seemingly endless. It isn't until Strayed reaches actual civilization in Ashland, Oregon that she really starts to gain perspective on what it all means and we're given as a valuable time marker alerting us of the year this took place. Being completely unfamiliar with the story, I didn't know until that moment.
    
As much as this be talked up as a spiritual journey of redemption, it's as much about failure as anything else since Strayed believes herself to be one as a wife, daughter, friend and sister before taking this adventure. The flashbacks are drenched in tragedy and self-destruction, but the most cathartic scene comes toward the end of the hike, nearly mirroring an equivalently timed breakdown scene that takes place in Into The Wild. It kind of comes out of nowhere, with the culmination of events piling on to hit viewers like a punch to the gut.

Some could have trouble getting into the film's rhythm, as it bucks convention to create a loose, free-flowing narrative in which images and memories flash before us, standing in stark contrast to a strict survival tale that takes us from point A to point B. In a crowded year, Wild went criminally overlooked and underappreciated by those who felt they've seen it before. But it proves to be a thrilling ride that connects on the most basic human level, leaving in its wake a complicated mixture of sadness and triumph.
           

Mud

Director: Jeff Nichols
Starring: Matthew McConaughey, Reese Witherspoon, Tye Sheridan, Jacob Lofland, Sam Shepard, Ray McKinnon, Sarah Paulson, Michael Shannon, Joe Don Baker, Bonnie Sturdivant
Running Time: 130 min.
Rating: PG-13

★★★ (out of ★★★★)

Matthew McConaughey's name is mud. No, seriously. That's actually his character's name in a film critics and audiences have been enthusiastically proclaiming one of 2013's best. And while I don't agree with that sentiment, it's easy to make a case. The southern coming-of-age drama undoubtedly has a lot going for it, making it hard to fault anyone for going crazy over an overly ambitious movie with actual ideas and two very strong performances, one of which comes from a child. It definitely works, despite the nagging feeling there's just a little something missing in the execution of what's admittedly top shelf material. The director is Jeff Nichols, who previously made the dramatic thriller Take Shelter, which fits into the same category of being a very good film occasionally flirting with greatness. He gets you to care about the characters without having to tell you to care about them and his stories often feel as richly realized as a novel. In this case, that literary inspiration clearly comes from Huckleberry Finn.

When two Arkansas teenage boys, Ellis (Tye Sheridan) and Neckbone (Jacob Lofland) happen upon a washed-up boat stuck in a tree on a small island on the Mississippi River, they make an even more intriguing discovery: A man living in it. His name's Mud (McConaughey), a grungy free spirit whose presence on the island is a mystery. What they do know is that he's from the area and on the run from something or someone that involves his old girlfriend, Juniper (Reese Witherspoon). But Ellis is having problems of his own as his parents (Ray McKinnon and Sarah Paulson) are divorcing just as he's falling hard for an older high school girl (Bonnie Sturdivant. With the help of Neckbone and an old friend from Mud's past, Tom Blankenship (Sam Shepard), he agrees to bring Mud food and supplies and aid him in locating Juniper. Unfortunately, it turns out that this man's problems are far greater and more dangerous than any teens should be involving themselves in.

There's absorbing sense of discovery in the film's early going because we have literally no idea what this guy's issues are. Since he's living in a washed up boat the implication is that he's homeless. But why? When we find out what exactly he's running the answers and explanations are considerably less surprising than you'd imagine, guiding the narrative into slightly more familiar territory than I'd originally hoped. That's not to imply the story isn't involving, but rather overtaken in a special kind of way by the atmosphere and performances. There's definitive deep south world created here and the plot points take a backseat to what's essentially a coming-of-age story for Ellis as he learns how relationships work and painfully begins his journey from child to young man as a result of the unfolding events.

As Ellis struggles with his own burgeoning relationship with the older May Pearl at school, an accurate (if entirely dysfunctional) image of adult relationships is reflected back at him through his parents and the love affair between Mud and Juniper, much of which exists inside Mud's own mind. It could even be more accurately described as a deluded obsession baring very little resemblance to reality. Which of course is exactly the point. Men trying to understand women they'll never quite be able to understand. And the big joke there is that we probably didn't need a movie to tell us that. But this one does, and pretty well. There's also a fairly absorbing action-adventure crime drama to go along with it when we realize the severity of Mud's troubles, which not only involve a woman, but the law as well.  Still, everything seems to find a way back to his feelings for Juniper. 

McConaughey is yet again cast against type, this time as a dirty, chip-toothed hobo pining over a woman he can never have. To call it the role a stretch is almost an understatement, but he proves to be up for it, effectively conveying layers of mystery to the character early on before the narrative takes a sharp turn, requiring him to be both pathetically desperate and a badass action hero at the same time. He pulls all of that off, in addition to sharing magical chemistry with his two young co-stars who both give really unforced, naturalistic performances. Especially The Tree of Life's Tye Sheridan, who has to carry most of the film's load as the male lead torn between how this mysterious stranger's love story fits into the fabric of his own life.

Mud may be the title character but Ellis is clearly the protagonist in every possible way, his actions and feelings guiding everything we see on screen. Jacob Lofland's role as Neckbone is the smaller, more cynical one but he shares some good scenes with Michael Shannon (as his uncle), who steals scenes a character who may actually qualify as the sanest and most direct in the film. Of course, he's still extremely eccentric and certifiably unhinged, but at least he gives somewhat sage advice and knows what the deal is. That he's playing a wise, calming presence (at least by his standards) should give you an idea just how messed-up these characters truly are.

If that wasn't enough, Reese Witherspoon comes completely out of left field with a supporting turn as emotionally and physically beat down southern belle Juniper that recalls her challenging 90's work in films like Freeway and Fear. It's a smallish and underwritten, but pivotal role that's built up quite a bit before she actually makes an appearance that completely delivers on the myth. At first, it's jarring to even see her playing such an edgy role and she initially seems miscast before eventually nailing it, reminding us that she was an actress before becoming a movie star and was always better at the former. It would take about five or six more of these types of risky choices to put her back on the track that McConaughey's on now.

Watching this, it's hard not to be reminded of the sun-drenched south poetically depicted in the films of David Gordon Green or even Terrence Malick. Nichols is in good company, despite this being a bit more conventional and less visually impressive. But it's ultimately about how men can't seem to understand women at all, and because of that, the film settles into a predictable rhythm that flirts with being formulaic at times. It's easy to tell where it's going, and to an extent, how it will get there. The ride itself is worthwhile largely because of McConaughey, who turns in what's probably his strongest work yet in this recent creative renaissance he's been enjoying. It's amazing to think that just a few years ago was starring in clunkers like Fool's Gold and Ghosts of Girlfriends Past. He's definitely come a long way, as this performance serves to only further erase those movies from our collective consciousness. As long as he stays the course, a very real possibility exists that he could be a future Oscar winner and it not be a joke.

Water For Elephants

Director: Francis Lawrence
Starring: Robert Pattinson, Reese Witherspoon, Christoph Waltz, Hal Holbrook, Paul Schneider 
Running Time: 121 min.
Rating: PG-13

★★★ (out of ★★★★)

Poor Reese Witherspoon. Forced to share the screen with an untrained sideshow spectacle who's poked and prodded at for audiences' enjoyment as an evil carnival barker urges them to pour out their pockets in hopes of getting a glimpse. No, it's not Rosie the elephant I'm referring to, but her other co-star, Robert Pattinson, who now faces the challenge of trying to be taken seriously as a dramatic actor after being established as a consumer product studios can make money off of. And outside of the Twilight franchise, even that assumption is uncertain. He's got a long road ahead of him and probably knows it, but all things considered, this is a decent first step. Water for Elephants is the right type of project for him to get his feet wet, playing to his strengths while offering him as few opportunities as possible to embarrass himself. So that's good news in itself. It also helps the film is an easy, enjoyable watch and at least slightly less ridiculous than I expected.

Adapted from Sara Gruen's popular novel and directed with old school flare by Francis Lawrence, the film employs one of my favorite narrative devices: An old man looking back on his life. Unfortunately, that promising device is executed about as clumsily as possible, treated as a mere afterthought before the film flashes back to The Great Depression when 23-year-old Cornell veterinary student Jacob Jankowski (Pattinson) loses both his parents in a car crash. Adrift in life, he starts riding the rails, ending up on the Benzini Brothers Circus Train. He meets the controlling August (Christoph Waltz) the circus owner and animal trainer who's married to the beautiful Marlena (Witherspoon), and prone to unpredictable fits of sadistic rage, treating her almost as badly as he does his animals. After an awkward first meeting, August hires Jacob as the circus vet but it becomes a complicated working arrangement when Jacob starts to fall for Marlena. It might be the one element in the circus that August can't control, with the results of that fledgling relationship having potentially dangerous consequences for all involved.

The big draw here is the circus setting and period atmosphere. From a technical standpoint it's virtually flawless and looks great. There are a bunch of Oscar nominees involved in the costuming, production, art direction and set design and it really shows. From a visual standpoint it actually feels like The Greatest Show on Earth or one of those old style Hollywood epics from the 1950's they don't attempt anymore. The script, however, makes it feel slightly smaller than it should. More like a TV movie, as the doomed lovers plot can't always keep up with the inspired circus backdrop. Pattinson, looking less pale and vampire-like than usual, effectively broods and longingly stares at Reese, but it's clearly the more experienced Witherspoon who's carrying this. She's a genuine movie star in the truest sense and the unattainable Marlena character fits her like a glove. Unlike her role, Pattinson's could have easily been swapped out with just about any other actor in his age range or older with no harm done to the film, but he holds his own, giving what resembles at times a passably strong performance. The two have okay (but not great) chemistry and their age difference isn't much of a factor. If anything, it's interesting to see a younger man and older women for a change, and an argument could be made it better suits the nature of this particular story of the protagonist being shown the ropes.

Watching I couldn't help but wish everything else had as much bite as Christoph Waltz's psycho circus ringmaster. Again channeling his sadistic streak from Inglourious Basterds he seems to be the go-to sociopath in movies these days, infusing each scene with his co-stars with a genuine sense of danger. There are points we fear for their lives, not to mention the life of the elephant. Besides the framing device mishap (which strangely has the younger Jacob narrating the story even though his older self, played by Hal Holbrook, is telling it in the present day) my biggest complaint is the film does lack that extra edge to put it over the top. Whether there was a fear in alienating faithful devotees of the novel, Pattinson fans or just a concern with preserving that audience friendly PG-13 tone, there are times it seems to be playing it safe when it really needs to cut loose with the romance and violence. Other than that it's difficult to pinpoint much Water for Elephants does wrong, and believe me I was looking. Chalk it up to low expectations if you must, but there's something to be said for telling a simple, but visually compelling story in a smart, straightforward way.
         

Rendition

Director: Gavin Hood
Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Reese Witherspoon, Omar Metwally, Meryl Streep, Alan Arkin, Peter Sarsgaard, Yigal Naor
Running Time: 122 min.
Rating: R

** (out of ****)

Gavin Hood's Rendition is a blatant piece of liberal Hollywood garbage. Long known for their political leanings they sink to new depths here and take what should be a complicated moral issue and turn it into a cartoon, undercutting their own cause. I'm sure it's fun for all these actors, actresses and studio executives to talk about their discontent with our country during the Oscar parties but I really wish they'd leave it there, especially if the results are going to be this preposterous. But no matter which side of the political fence you happen to stand on everyone should be equally offended how this movie mistreats an issue so important and stacks the deck so shamelessly.

That our government is evil and we torture innocent citizens of our own country for no good reason is what this script wants audiences to believe after watching this picture. It's possible situations vaguely similar to these occur but there's no way the people involved behave so stupidly. It's the first movie made for the sole purpose of pissing off Bill O' Reilly, which could be the only positive to come out of this mess that inflicts just as much torture on its viewers as its protagonist. That it stars 3 Academy Award-winning actors willing to make complete fools out of themselves is worth contemplating. I'm glad, because nothing else in this supposedly relevant political thriller is.

On a flight to Chicago from South Africa, Egyptian Anwar El-Ibrahimi (Omar Metwally) disappears while his pregnant wife Isabella (a horribly miscast Reese Witherspoon) and young son worry at home. It turns out he's being subjected to "rendition," which is the controversial U.S. policy of imprisoning terror suspects on foreign soil and torturing them until they cough up answers. Questionable cell phone calls is the reason given for Anwar's imprisonment, as ordered by senior C.I.A. official Corrine Whitman (Meryl Streep). Assigned to oversee his interrogation in an unnamed prison in North Africa is rookie C.I.A analyst Douglas Freeman (Jake Gyllenhaal), who's still reeling after surviving a suicide bombing that took the life of his partner. Meanwhile in the states, Isabella goes to Washington D.C. for help from an old flame (Peter Sarsgaard) who happens to be the aid to an important U.S. Senator (Alan Arkin).

As Anwar's interrogation/torture by a foreign brute (Yigal Naor) wears on, Freeman starts to have some serious doubts as to this man's guilt and whether our government has taken things too far. What a quick study he is. The film, which has bitten off more than it can chew as it is, also tries to string together a sub-plot involving that bombing and link it to the main storyline. All that does is create confusion because not enough time is spent on those periphery characters and their roles don't become clear until the final reel, at which point we don't care. The movie is a mess from beginning to end and it's obvious from the onset that the story can go in only one direction. However, the clumsy ways the script manages to take us there are endless.

For starters there's absolutely no doubt from the get-go this man is an upstanding citizen so the fact that he would be captured and tortured to the extent he is with basically no evidence at all is insane. Our government may be dumb sometimes, but that's really stretching it. A smarter film would have planted even just the tiniest seed of doubt as to his innocence, which would complicate an issue that's supposed to be inspiring thought and debate. Unlike last year's similarly themed A Mighty Heart, the movie doesn't back down in showing us scenes of torture. In fact, they show us much more than we need to see…over and over again. And we get different varieties of it as well. How "timely" is this movie? They even find a way to throw water boarding in there.

All of this goes on while Gyllenhaal's character stands there wide-eyed for nearly the entire running length of the picture as Anwar is pumped for information he's incapable of giving. "Should I do something?" he must be asking himself. Yeah, I think you should. Strangely, the movie poses this question to us as if we're supposed to feel any other way and it's a huge philosophical debate for the ages. I'm also getting sick of films set on foreign soil containing a musical score with a distracting Middle Eastern flavor to it, complete with chants and groans. Besides just being ignorant, it calls attention to itself in a negative way.

It stacks the deck even higher when it comes to portraying our government officials who in this film could double for Disney villains. Try imagining Miranda Priestly from the Devil Wears Prada being in charge of U.S. foreign policy and you have a good idea how Streep's character is portrayed. I almost expected Hood to throw in a scene of her downing shots with her husband to celebrate the latest innocent American to be tortured overseas. Would it have killed screenwriter Kelley Sane (or Streep for that matter) to invest this woman with just a twinge of humanity? And of course we're treated to the big money scene of Isabella screaming at her to release her husband. Arkin's senator isn't much better, but thankfully he's in fewer scenes.

While Streep and Arkin may be gifted actors I really could care less what they choose to with (or to) their careers, especially Arkin. But I can't say the same about Reese Witherspoon, who I hold to a higher standard. Why she would take a role like this is even more perplexing when you realize that despite being given top billing, she's hardly in the film at all. She isn't given nearly enough time to flesh out a person you care about which ironically causes the film to suffer from the opposite problem as A Mighty Heart, which gave us too much Marianne Pearl and not enough Daniel. This does let us get to know the victim a little bit better…except we'd rather not because he's bland and the actor playing him has no real presence or charisma. The only performer who escapes free of embarrassment is Gylenhaal who, while also miscast, does give it everything he has even when the script completely lets him down. Those curious to see whether he and Witherspoon have any chemistry onscreen won't be given any answers as they don't share so much as a single scene together in the film.

Rendition, as a motion picture experience, only really falls somewhere between the categories of bad and fair but I think what makes the film seem so much worse is the possibility that something similar to this COULD happen in reality. Rest assured that if it did, the issue wouldn't be nearly as one-sided and cut and dry as this screenplay makes it out to be. The idea of exploring extreme rendition is a fascinating one, but I was under the impression the debate concerns the torture of suspected terrorists for information, not American businessmen kidnapped at airports as our government gleefully celebrates.

I have no problem with any film taking a political stance but my only wish is that they treat the subject at hand with intelligence and we leave the film thinking about something. There's nothing to think about here. It instead succeeds only in combining the worst elements of Babel and Syriana. After this I'm more hesitant than ever to see what's supposed to be Hollywood's other political propaganda piece of the year, Robert Redford's Lions For Lambs, co-starring Tom Cruise and Meryl Streep (again). With Redford at the helm hopes should be a little higher, but the possibility that liberal Hollywood could come up with something more empty-headed than this is truly frightening. I'm all for fighting for a cause, but they're doing themselves no favors.