★★★★★

I never thought I would see Reese Witherspoon ever agree to do a movie with nude scenes for herself. Maybe I just haven’t seen enough of her movies? I guess she is still “Legally Blonde” and living in “Sweet Home Alabama” in my mind. An incredibly accomplished and gifted hot bodied actress who is so much fun to be around people forget to ask her to take her clothes off. Not that her being naked would ever be a disappointment, just that we would all be having too good a time talking and laughing with her to get around to that before we were too tired.

Having said all of that, Wild was a great movie. I deeply respect her rising to the challenge. Actually filming in the wild on the trail braving the bugs and the elements had to be an amazing challenge all by itself. We always praise the actors for undertaking this, but the camera crew actually had to hide out in the brush to stay out of scenes. They must have been eaten alive. If any part of that trail is like parts of Wisconsin I’ve been to, there had to be mosquitoes large enough to carry off small children.

I don’t know if Reese allowed herself to actually get the bruises and raw spots from the pack or if makeup and special effects did that to her. It was most certainly jarring to see.

Flashbacks actually worked

Few movies work well jumping between flashback-introspection and present day, but this movie pulled it off. There was no other way to splice it together. If we had all of the back story up front we would have forgotten it by the time we needed to remember it later in the film.

Quite honestly, Reese is one of those actors who can not only have any role she wants, but actually deliver each and every time. She delivered the house, the car and the tractor trailer with her performance in this movie. Maybe that is why she agreed to the nude scenes? Her career has already achieved so much there can no longer be any question about her skills and ability, so why not?

For more movie rental ideas please see list one and list two.