Wildlike follows a teenage girl as she goes to live with her uncle. She soon realizes that circumstances at home with her uncle are unbearable and ultimately she runs away, where she meets an older man about to go hiking.
I love the title. It's a simple word that is rarely used in the English language, and it fits the movie pretty well. It's a small thing that proves that the director gave a bigger crap about this movie than some others might've.
There are some pretty nice scenic shots in this movie. They aren't anything I haven't seen before, but they were pretty at least.
The actors are pretty good. I bought each performance, and the writing accompanying them was pretty good too. It was like each part was written for the actor who played them. They manage to embody these characters really well.
The movie spends a decent amount of time developing certain plot points. I specifically appreciated this at the beginning of the movie when the girl and her uncle first start living together. Their relationship is pretty well developed, although short lived, and there're a couple great scenes involving the uncle alone in his room. We as the audience see the turning point in him when he decides to make living with him unbearable, and we see him struggling with this decision and it's something we just don't see every often in movies. It brings humanity to the bad guy right off the bat, and I really appreciated that.
The two main characters Kenzie and Bart have really good chemistry, and I really enjoyed seeing them on screen together and interacting and all that.
I quite enjoyed the soundtrack as well. There were a handful of good songs throughout, and most of them suited the movie pretty well too.
Unfortunately the story does fall flat on it's face from time to time. When the actual hiking starts it's kind of forced. There's not really a good reason for it to actually happen and serves more as filler, character development, and scenic shots. The last two of those things are good, but like I said, it's pretty forced. You as the audience are able to understand for the most part why it happens, but it's still kind of dumb.
Overall Wildlike is pretty good. There's some great chemistry between the two main characters, some good actors, the main 'antagonist' is great and very human, the soundtrack is good and the scenery is pretty, but the plot is often forced for the sake of story progression. In the end I'd recommend this movie.
