Being honest – when my eyes saw the instantly recognizable yellow rectangle followed by the words Wild Life (I read it as “wildlife”) I knew that I was in a for a top quality Natural Geographic nature documentary.
And I wasn’t in the mood for one.
Mind you, husband and wife filmmakers Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin have made stunning, award-winning films, but I’d have rather seen a love story with political intrigue, zillionaire characters in sometimes hostile territory and…..
And that is the special film that is Wild Life.
Synopsis
“Wild Life chronicles the close relationship of conservationist Kris Tompkins, the first CEO of outdoor brand Patagonia, and her husband Douglas Tompkins, an outdoorsman and entrepreneur who founded The North Face and co-founded Esprit. Together, spanning decades of work, they created national parks throughout Chile and Argentina and preserved one of the last wild places on Earth by making the largest private land donation in history.”
We expect and we get the gorgeous vistas, the sense of being alone in our heads on the mountain and all the other accessories you’d expect. But it’s the human stories, the imperfection of good people, the goodness of imperfect people—and back around again.
Great editing and photography, a well-crafted narrative to get us through the true story and a satisfying conclusion. I loved it.
