The Big Trip - Wild - Blu-ray

Movie: After the death of her mother (Laura Dern), a fall into heroin addiction and the failure of her marriage, Cheryl Strayed (Reese Witherspoon) has lost all grip on her life. Hoping to find her way again, she makes a radical decision: completely alone she wants to hike along the Pacific Crest Trail from Southern California to Northern Oregon. 2000 kilometers through rugged wilderness and snow-covered mountain ranges - and all without any hiking experience. But Cheryl rises to the challenge and resists any temptation to give up prematurely. And that temptation grows stronger with every mile she completes, facing not only loneliness, pain, and all manner of danger, but also intensified very painful memories of her past...

Based on the acclaimed book by Cheryl Strayed, The Great Trip - Wild tells the story of a fascinating trip of self-discovery in stunning visuals. For the film version, none other than bestselling author Nick Hornby (About a Boy) adapted the memoir published in 2012. His screenplay lightens the dramaturgically inherently heavy story a bit with subtle wordplay and purposefully interspersed humor here and there. Given the many dark flashbacks that show Cheryl on her path to self-destruction or the slow death of her mother, such lightening is absolutely necessary to keep the audience's mood from dragging completely down. Because ultimately, The Big Trip - Wild is supposed to spread a positive, life-affirming message. And that comes across far better when viewers aren't completely depressed before a small glimmer of hope can spread.

Director Jean-Marc Vallée (Dallas Buyers Club), of course, doesn't rely solely on great imagery for his portrait of a woman who is in danger of breaking down in the modern world and seeks her own personal salvation in the wild outdoors. First and foremost, his drama is carried by a magnificent Reese Witherspoon, who believably embodies all facets of Cheryl. Whether she's the loving daughter and wife, the drug-addicted adulteress or the tough loner, the Oscar winner delivers an extremely strong and stirring performance at every moment, carrying the film through its more tame moments.

Even if The Big Trip - Wild is not a masterpiece purely on a dramaturgical level and moves on rather familiar terrain, the film has become a really strong piece of cinema thanks to the engaging direction and the intense acting of the lead actress, which also works really well due to the perfect interplay of images, music and story. If you can put up with a few small lengths for this, you should definitely join Reese Witherspoon on her big trip. Absolutely worth seeing!

Picture + Sound: The film lives not only from the strong performance of Reese Witherspoon, but also from the fantastic images of the varied landscape along the Pacific Crest Trail, which are very good on the Blu-ray thanks to a very high image sharpness and an atmospheric color mix. There is also nothing to complain about in terms of contrast matching here, which is why the film's visual realisation for home cinema leaves a very positive overall impression. The same can be said for the audio, which comes in an atmospheric DTS 5.1 mix. The sound thrives on the very well realized soundscape of the wild nature, which has really powerful surround moments to offer in some scenes. Good!

Extras: The Blu-ray has plenty of bonus material to offer. It starts off with a very interesting audio commentary by director Jean-Marc Vallée, producer Bruna Papandrea and executive producer David Greenbaum. The three talk animatedly about the realization of the book and various aspects of the filming. This report is supplemented by several short featurettes. Here, the real Cheryl Strayed has her say (approx. 8:37 min.), the filming locations are introduced (approx. 8:45 min.) and even Cheryl's monster, her heavy backpack, is put under the microscope (approx. 3:46 min.). Seven more behind-the-scenes clips then deal with the making of the film. Here, the journey from book to film (approx. 3:35 min.) is traced, lead actress Reese Witherspoon's performance is acknowledged (approx. 3:55 min.), the director is observed at work (approx. 3:56 min.), or a general look behind the scenes is given (approx. 5:21 min.). And the Pacific Crest Trail gets three mini-documentaries (approx. 11 min. combined). Finally, the disc also has 5 dropped scenes with optional director's commentary (approx. 7:49 min.), the trailer, and an image gallery to offer. Good!

Conclusion: The Great Trip - Wild has become a really strong piece of cinema thanks to the strong performance of Reese Witherspoon as well as the perfect interplay of images, music and story, even if it hardly breaks new ground dramaturgically. The Blu-ray presents the intense self-discovery trip in very good picture and sound quality and also has some worth seeing extras on board. For this there is a very clear: Absolutely recommendable!

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp