Wild (2014): A movie that scores well for women's voice

Lately many of my tweets have focused on women's presence and voice in mainstream movies. I have pointed out which new trailers show women only talking to men and not to other women, as well as those that show women playing nothing more than supportive roles to men. I have often mentioned the Bechdel Test (a test that serves as an indicator of the active presence of women in movies). To pass this test a movie must show: 1) two female characters (preferably named), 2) talking to each other, 3) about something besides a man. The bar is very low. If this test were about men instead of women pretty much every movie ever made would pass it. As it is the majority of movies fail the Bechdel Test because filmmakers rarely show two women talking about something besides men. To say that the film industry is androcentric feels like an understatement.

However, things are slowly improving. Lately there have been more movies that score well in terms of women's presence and voice as more and more women get a chance to be involved in the film industry from behind the camera. I have discussed a few of these in the past. One that I have not yet discussed is Wild (2014), which centers on one's woman's life and focuses heavily on her relationship with her mother. It passes the Bechdel Test with flying colours. Wild is based on a memoir written by Cheryl Strayed and directed by fellow Canadian Jean-Marc Vallée, who gave us C.R.A.Z.Y. (2005). It is an unusual and interesting movie, one that I would recommend. It is the story of one woman's journey, and that is something we need to see a great deal more of from the film industry.

© 2018 Alline Cormier

​