Movie Thoughts: A Cry in the Wild (1990)

 

• Released: April 1990
• Directed by: Mark Griffiths
• Running time: 1h 22min
• Rating 3.5/5

Synopsis

A boy is stranded in the Canadian wilderness and has to survive by himself.

My Thoughts

This is a movie I went into blindly that I ended up surprisingly really liking. The first few minutes did make me skeptical (I wasn't exactly sold on the characters), but as soon as the plot got started I was pretty much invested.

The movie is honestly quite simple: it is mostly just Brian trying to survive in the wild by himself. There's very few characters in this movie and we do spend 90% of it with only Brian, but since he was a pretty solid character I liked following that wasn't an issue. I found myself rooting for him pretty soon and it was nice seeing him grow more and more adept at surviving in the wild.

The movie is honestly pretty laid back, too. There are a few action scenes and those are certainly exciting, but a lot of the movie just as a nice relaxed vibe to it where we see Brian grow slowly but surely more competent at survival until he's rescued. The movie doesn't really have a main goal or plot other than "survival", but I still think it really worked. I was just very invested in this character and seeing his struggles.

Is the movie perfect though? Eh, I wouldn't say that. There are a few cringe-worthy moments of bad dialogue or bad acting from Brian's actor. There's also a really odd moment with a vanishing and re-appearing wolf that's just never really explained. It feels like either Brian was hallucinating the wolf, or the wolf really was magical which just feels out of place in this otherwise grounded movie.

But yeah, I did have a good time watching this movie. Apparently there's a sequel? Might check that one out.