With a screenplay by Nick Hornby, Jean-Marc Vallée's often dreamlike film is based on the true story of Cheryl Strayed's trek up the1,000-mile-long Pacific Coast Trail. David Roy watched

WITH its 'worthy' themes and almost total reliance upon an intensely committed performance from lead actress (and former Oscar-winner) Reese Witherspoon, Wild is pretty much a shoe-in for some statuette-based love at this year's Academy Awards.

It's kind of a 'chick flick' but guys will also get plenty from this well-made tale of a plucky used-and-abused young woman who takes the theraputic concept of 'me time' to literal extremes.

In the mid-'90s Cheryl Strayed set off on a 1,100 mile hike up the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) having nearly destroyed her life through self-destructive behaviour in the wake of a family tragedy.

The PCT runs north from the US/Mexico border through California, Oregon and Washington to Manning Park in British Columbia, Canada, meaning Cheryl must negotiate baking hot desert, freezing cold mountain ranges and assorted wild critters.

Even though the 20-something has never hiked before, such harsh environs seem mild compared to the grotty Portland flop-houses she's been getting naked and shootin heroin in.

Jean-Marc Vallee's film enables audiences to take this wild trip of self-realisation and acceptance with Cheryl (Withersoon), riding the tides of her stream of consciousness as memories good and bad flash before her eyes out in Mother Nature's backyard.

While Cheryl Strayed's (Witherspoon) commentary can slide into hippy-dippy pseudo-profundity a little too often - she loves to quote poetry and her favourite feminist authors - at heart she's a tough cookie who's not afraid to unleash a cleansing stream of profanity when the occasion demands it.

And, when she confides to a fellow hiker that "I think I feel more alone in my real life than I do our here," you may feel a twinge of existential empathy - just keep shovelling popcorn into the void where your soul should be until it passes. Cheryl begins her epic quest of self-discovery as a laughably inexperienced hiker, lugging a pack that weighs twice as much as her own skinny knobbly-kneed self while crushing her toe nails off in boots that are a size too small. While some of her exploits are played for comic relief in Nick Hornby's expertly assembled screenplay (which does offer frequent moments of underplayed humour which help the film's two-hour running time slip by quite quickly), we quickly start to become worried that this vulnerable young woman will at any second be devoured by wolves, bitten by a deadly snake and/or abducted, raped and murdered by the kind of salty characters who tend to have good reasons for living out in the middle of nowhere. We also gradually learn all about the hell of a rather different kind that Cheryl has already been through, having thrown herself into a life of promiscuity and hard drugs as coping mechanism when her mother (an excellent Laura Dern) is diagnosed with terminal cancer of the spine.

We glimpse Cheryl's family life in flashback, reliving the early years when she and her brother Lief (Keene McRae) would be offered the same "knuckle sandwiches" their father (Jason Newell) would deliver to their mother's face on a regular basis until the three were forced to flee and start over.

Naturally, the usual ego-centric angst of the siblings' teenage years leaves them with plenty of guilt to deal with once the C word comes along, ensuring Cheryl's inner demons are good and hungry when the inevitable happens. Witherspoon easily carries the film from beginning to end with her best performance since Tracey Flick in Alexander Payne's superb high-school satire, Election.

Much like Cheryl's real journey, Wild is occasionally hard going. Yet ultimately, it's a worthwhile cinema experience that's often quite often beautiful to behold - even if it's not quite on the same level of dramatic based-on-a-true-story greatness as director Vallee's previous slice of life, Dallas Buyers Club.

Wild may inspire you to pack a bag and head for the great outdoors on your very own voyage of self-discovery - but for goodness sake be sure to wear the right sized boots.

Expect its star to swap her clod-hoppers for even more uncomfortable heels as she totters up to collect her gong on Oscar night.