Bill Bryson’s 1998 book, “A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail,” would seem to provide ripe fodder for the big screen.
The trail itself is sometimes breathtakingly beautiful, and Bryson’s quick wit left many readers — including me — laughing out loud while reading the book.
There’s a catch, however: “A Walk in the Woods” isn’t a straight comedy. Instead, it’s a celebration of human curiosity and a study of our quest for adventure. The fact that Bryson combines those two facets in hilarious fashion is a bonus.
The movie version of “A Walk in the Woods” made its debut this week, and luckily for Bryson fans, director Ken Kwapis captured every nuance of the original work in the film.
The film stars Robert Redford as Bryson, Nick Nolte as his hiking partner, Stephen Katz, and Emma Thompson as Bryson’s wife, Catherine.
If you’re a Bryson reader, the casting of the male leads might leave you raising an eyebrow. Consider: The key thread of the book involves the author and his sometimes-bumbling sidekick embarking on an epic journey. They hope to hike the entire Appalachian Trail from Georgia to Maine.
When Bryson attempted the actual hike that led to him writing the book, he was in his 40s. Redford is 79. Nolte is 74.
To be sure, older hikers exist (though, I’d posit, not many of them resemble the portly Nolte if they’re going to have any luck on the trail).
My fear: That the movie version of “A Walk in the Woods” would devolve into a formulaic version of an old standard. “Grumpy Old Men Take a Hike.”
Fortunately, that doesn’t happen.
Instead, the focus is on the interplay between Redford’s Bryson and Nolte’s Katz, a former friend of the author, after a long estrangement.
When Catherine Bryson reminds her husband, during the planning phase of the trip, that Katz used to get on his nerves, the response is classic and sets the tone for the rest of the movie.
“No,” Bryson says. “We started off on each others’ nerves. We ended up despising each other.”
As the bumbling Katz is the only “friend” to accept Bryson’s invitation for the adventure of a lifetime, he’s left with the overweight, limping former boozehound and womanizer as his companion.
Nolte is captivating from his shambling arrival on screen, shuffling off a small plane looking like he’d already hiked the entire Appalachian Trail: Shaggy, lame and exhausted.
Thompson is perfect in the role of Bryson’s wife, and Redford shines as well. The veteran emerges as the sarcastic, quick-witted writer who isn’t eager to go softly into that dark night.
In an entertaining early scene, Bryson tells an awkward TV interviewer that he’s got no plans to retire from writing.
“Writers don’t retire,” he tells the man. “They either drink themselves to death or blow their brains out.”
Or, in this case, they find something — like an epic hike — to keep writing about.
The only criticism: The film doesn’t adequately depict the grittiness of the Appalachian Trail, nor its thru-hikers. Hiking can be a dirty, sweaty business.
Nolte shows up on the trail with a beard, and three states later, it’s the same length. Redford, even after several days on the trail, is always close-shaven and more or less clean. And aside from falling asleep rather quickly, neither seems overly exhausted by their adventure.
While Bryson himself has said that the release of the movie may actually dissuade people from trying to hike the entire Appalachian Trail, he may be mistaken. The book prompted many to do so when it became popular, and there’s nothing in the movie version of the tale (save a pretty frightening bear encounter and a pretty serious fall off a cliff) that will likely change that.
Mainers may be disappointed that their section of the Appalachian Trail, which ends at Mount Katahdin, is not featured. That’s a small concern, however. The scenery that director Kwapis captures on the southern section of the Appalachian Trail is breathtaking in its own right.
Nolte’s character sums up much of that footage as he stands on a peak, looking at the not-so-distant Smoky Mountains.
“Wow.”
