How trauma manifests in the editing style of ‘Wild’
Wild, directed by the late Jean-Marc Vallée in 2014, is based on the true story of Cheryl Strayed, a woman who trekked the Pacific Coast Trail on her own as a way of restarting her life and confronting her past. With Reese Witherspoon starring in the lead role, we watch her journey through snow, mud and dirt and being awakened by the eerie silence of the mountains that force her to reflect on the moments that led her to this point, creating an introspective eco-chamber that encourages her to wrestle with the woman she is, versus the woman she wants to be.
Throughout the course of her gruelling hike, we begin to see snippets of the experiences that have uprooted Cheryl’s life and sent her down the wrong path, with a history of addiction and self-destructive behaviours in response to her mother’s death that have slowly ruined her relationships. However, Vallée never reveals this in a predictable or complete way, carefully bleeding together the past and present through a fragmented yet seamless editing style, with her unresolved pains rearing their ugly head as she sits with the grief that she has never dealt with head-on.
At the start of the film, we learn that Cheryl plans to ‘walk back to herself’ by embarking on this ambitious hike, leaving her in a precariously vulnerable state as she abandons the habits that have previously held her together. By filling her emotional void with drinking and meaningless affairs, she’s allowed herself to turn a blind eye to the root of the problem, but when faced with the stark beauty and expansiveness of the ‘wild’, Cheryl learns to tame the wildness within her and tackle the reasons for its existence.
After the death of her mother, Cheryl’s life descended into chaos, unable to dwell in any complete memories from this time after blocking out the blistering pain of losing the person she loved most. Grief is non-sensical and often isn’t experienced linearly, something that Vallée reflects beautifully through the editing style.
When something awful happens, our brains shut down, and we cannot remember the full moments of the tragedy. What takes over is the memory of a smell, a colour or a piece of clothing we were wearing, with the details becoming foggy as the emotional shrapnel explodes. Vallée uses the psychology of how we process trauma to reflect Cheryl’s life before the hikes, with jarring and seemingly out-of-place images of a painting hanging on a wall or a blurry face, unable to process its meaning as she bats it away from the forefront of her mind. By presenting these fragmented images of her life, the viewer is pushed into the same emotional space as Cheryl, hiking through a hazy web of memories that slowly find meaning as she allows herself to sit with them, with the truth emerging from her hidden pain, regret and guilt.
There is nothing to distract Cheryl while walking, and the emotional baggage she has avoided becomes inescapable, with the full picture finally coming into view. The blurry image of a painting on a wall was the only thing she could remember from the doctor’s office as she was told about her mother’s cancer diagnosis. The shape of someone’s back was all she could remember from a sexual encounter that momentarily filled the void after she died.
During her self-imposed redemption trek, Cheryl breaks free of her destructive patterns and repressed pains, with wispy recollections of her mother dancing in the kitchen and jeans being unbuckled, slowly forming the full portrait of her life, finally able to see herself for who she really is. Vallée depicts the psychological impact of trauma by weaving segments from the past and present, unravelling until she lets go entirely, breaking free of the incomplete memories that have haunted her. By being pushed to her breaking point, Cheryl takes control of her pain before it controls her, reconnecting with hope and finally walking away from her past.
