Wild made me want to puke

Wild is yet another film based on a true story, as currently seems to be in vogue for some reason. (See The Imitation Game, Foxcatcher, The Theory of Everything, Testament of Youth etc.) Maybe the film world has run out of made-up stories, which was bound to happen sooner or later, as you can’t just pluck them out of the air? I don’t know. I can only tell you that this is the story of Cheryl Strayed who, after a series of personal struggles, opts to rebuild herself by walking 1,000 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail, from the Mojave Desert to the Oregon/Washington border. This is a female on-the-road narrative, which should be cause for celebration in and of itself, as it’s a genre that, going right back to The Odyssey, has never given women much of a look-in. But somehow Cheryl always feels at arm’s length, plus it veers towards the Oprah-ish.