With his upcoming drama Dallas Buyers Club having debuted to rave reviews when it premiered at the Toronto Film Festival last month, director Jean-Marc Vallée will almost certainly become a more familiar face whenever awards season rolls around. That is, if he’s not still busy filming his other possible Oscar contender, the memoir adaptation Wild. We now have our first look at the film thanks to star Reese Witherspoon (seen above) and her Twitter account.
Honestly, it’s the most basic image one could have expected from the film, which will chronicle the 1,100-mile hike on the Pacific Crest Trailer taken by author Cheryl Strayed, who made the trek as a way of coping with the downward spiral her adult life had taken, following the death of her mother, her failed marriage and a bout with heroin addiction. There’s no better iconography for a hike than someone standing in front of a bunch of mountains with a huge backpack strapped on. This film isn’t one in which the actress needs to look exactly like the person being portrayed, so there’s probably not much prep work Witherspoon has to go through each day. The only difference being the 11-year difference in ages between her and Strayed when the trip was taken. Oh well.
According to Deadline, Fox Searchlight recently signed Laura Dern for the role of Strayed’s mother, which means we probably won’t be seeing too much of her in the film. Though her death being such an emotional catalyst probably means that quite a few flashbacks will be utilized here. That’d be great, since Dern is a wonderful addition in every project she’s a part of.
Now that her HBO series Enlightened has been cancelled, we’ll probably be seeing much more of Dern on the big screen. She has upcoming roles in Thomas Carter’s underdog sports drama When the Game Stands Tall and Daniel Duran’s troubled teen drama Strings, and is currently filming Josh Boone’s adaptation of the highly acclaimed John Green YA novel The Fault in Our Stars, which I cannot wait for. She’s also set to star in the webcam/Skype ensemble drama Mother’s Day, a film that I can absolutely wait for, maybe even indefinitely.
Wild, which was scripted by acclaimed novelist Nick Hornby and also stars Charles Baker, Michiel Huisman, Gaby Hoffman and Kevin Rankin, Wild began its production last week in Oregon, with plans for a 2014 release. What can we expect from the next production still? Maybe one of her actually tying the laces on her hiking boots, or one of her feet actually on the trail itself?
