Adventures in Living and Dying

Women on a mission: 

WILD (B) -  Reese Witherspoon spins a strong performance in this scattered, uneven story of a woman in search of redemption and inner peace.

Director Jean-Marc Vallee shows the slightly shaky hand he had at the helm of the impressive but lacking "Dallas Buyers Club" last year. Here he takes Cheryl Strayed's memoirs and struggles with the heroine's flashbacks and narration, creating a choppy narrative that finds its footing only in the second half.

Witherspoon is Cheryl, battling a past that includes drug abuse, rampant infidelity while married and the death of her mother from cancer. We hear Cheryl's scattered thoughts as she sets out on the Pacific Crest Trail walking across California and Oregon, determined to purge while pursuing a true course. Those hushed thoughts skitter about, some getting lost in the mix. Meantime, flashbacks fill in Cheryl's backstory. Those flashbacks are the weakest part here. Laura Dern (so good in TV's "Enlightened") is wildly off pitch as the spunky mom, a survivor of an abusive husband and then the noble cancer victim. Gaby Hoffmann ("Crystal Fairy") is wasted in a throwaway role as Cheryl's pal. Thomas Sadoski (TV's "The Newsroom") is a cipher as Cheryl's thoughtful ex.

The first hour of setup consists mostly of Cheryl as the fish out of water fumbling with her tent and supplies, fending off creeps. Witherspoon is plain and natural, but the load she carries here is as burdensome as Cheryl's ridiculously overstuffed backpack. She's a trouper -- even naked and groveling at times -- and it's to her credit that she rescues this film by the final act and makes you care about not only Cheryl's survival but her moral reckoning. She wrings true emotion from a story that doesn't necessarily deserve such a payoff.

I found myself connecting with Cheryl, seeing in her other women I've known in their late 30s who were conducting a life accounting and staring into the abyss, searching for meaning. We see the good in Cheryl, and we identify with her journey.

MIELE (HONEY) (B-minus) -  Actress Valeria Golina ("Big Top Pee-Wee") makes her directorial debut with this pensive tale of a woman who fetches drugs from Mexico and returns to Italy to provide assisted-suicide services as part of an underground operation.

Golina presents Jasmine Trinca ("Best of Youth") as Irene, an androgynous loner with the heavy heart of a caring Angel of Death who goes by the nom de morte Miele, or Honey. She is meticulous and attentive as she eases the suffering of the chronically or terminally ill. One day she delivers her lethal package to an older man, Carlo Grimaldi (Carlo Cecchi), who, it turns out, is not ill at all -- he's just weary of life and feels like ending it all.

Irene is incensed. That is not what this is supposed to be about. Haunted by the idea of having a hand in such a breach of protocol, she hounds Grimaldi and tries to talk him out of it. He invites her to dinner. She crashes at his apartment. They develop a bond.

The rest is fairly predictable but it's not without its charms. Golina has a sharp eye here for detail. Her camera lingers over Trinca's boyish attributes, as if she sees herself in the actress 15 years her junior. We get several shots of feet, including a random close-up of the feet from someone doing a handstand in a wheat field, and Irene's baby-blue toe-nails contrasted with a grand Persian rug.

Golina captures Irene's glum mood without descending into maudlin histrionics. The closing shot is absolutely lovely. The heavy topic has a distinct lightness of being. This falls short of profound but it has a way of lingering well after viewing.