Wildlike (2014)

Drama, Thriller, Adventure

Director: Frank Hall Green
Writer: Frank Hall Green
Starring: Bruce Greenwood, Ella Purnell, Nolan Gerard Funk, Brian Geraghty

"Beauty can be found in unlikely places."

A runaway teenager finds safety and paternal care from a backpacker in the Alaskan wilderness.

Mackenzie is a 14-year-old girl who is sent to live with her uncle in Alaska, after the recent death of her father and the hospitalization of her mother. Even though he seems like a supportive caretaker and friend at first, his inappropriate behavior determines her to run away. Without any means of returning home to Seattle, she ends up hiking across the Denali National Park, following an older widowed backpacker, who she gradually develops a friendship with.

The subject isn't anything new – sexual abuse by a family member/road movie set in the wilderness – but the way it is told is what makes Wildlike on of those unique and underrated gems that is told with such beauty and humanity that its effect remains even weeks after viewing.

Plot summary from IMDb: Mackenzie, a troubled but daring teenage girl, is sent by her struggling mother to live with her uncle in Juneau, Alaska. Although Uncle seems like a supportive caretaker and friend, the relationship turns and Mackenzie is forced to run. Trying to make her way back to Seattle alone to find her absent mother, Mackenzie only winds up deeper in the Alaskan interior. Lost and with no one else to turn to, she shadows a loner backpacker, Bartlett, an unlikely father figure with scars of his own. Together, they cross the wilderness and discover sanctuary in the last frontier.

Awards: 42 wins & 16 nominations.
Runtime: 104 min
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