Rating: 2/5
On this occasion, audience attendance was sadly indicative of the film’s quality.
Based on travel writer Bill Bryson’s 1998 book, A Walk in the Woods recounts some of his 3500-kilometre tramp through the Appalachian Trail. Living a comfortable life in New Hampshire with his English wife, Catherine (Emma Thompson), Bill (Robert Redford) doesn’t expect to write any more books. However, after attending a wedding and taking a walk near the Appalachian Trail, Bill decides to walk it with his ol’ mate, Stephen Katz (Nick Nolte); the pair reconnect on this trip after having a falling out some 20 years ago.
Redford and Nolte’s acting efforts aren’t bad by any stretch, but at its heart A Walk in the Woods is essentially a collection of mildly funny and heart-warming anecdotes, strung together by some natural scenery and grumpy, old, bickering men. Bryson’s book, which worked well as an ambling monologue with intermittent musings and quirky anecdotes, unfortunately proves too slow-moving for the narrative-driven film adaptation.
The film’s major downfall is in its details. Both men are twenty years older in the film than the book, and Katz looks nowhere near healthy enough to be walking anywhere. The recurring interactions that Bryson and Katz have with young and enthusiastic hikers (their jargon-filled tramper chat is annoying) and Katz’s constant crude humour take away from any character development. This contradicts the film’s premise. Bryson’s insistent facts and observations about their natural setting are annoying and tiresome, doing little to speed up the meandering plot or encourage any thematic growth.
There’s nothing remotely deep about these two men’s tramping experience. A Walk in the Woods fails to explore anything more complex than the fact that Bill Bryson and Stephen Katz are two men walking around and getting old.