The River Wild
Directed by Curtis Hanson
- adventure
- thriller
- drama
The story
Gail and Tom Hartman are struggling to stay together and decide to take a white-water rafting holiday adventure in Montana for their son Roarke's 10th birthday, only to meet up with a pair of mysterious men whose desperation grows, turning their vacation into a nightmare.
What it’s like
Sun-bleached and rain-slicked by turns, with the Montana river throwing spray and glare across every frame, this is a film of big outdoor light, wide canyon vistas and handheld camera that lurches into the rapids with the rafters. Curtis Hanson shoots the water as something physical and indifferent: rocks glossed white, green-brown current, roaring sound design that often drops away to the creak of rubber boats and quiet talk between people in a cold, damp tent. The score swells for set pieces and retreats for the marriage scenes, which play in close, tense two-shots. The mood is taut and anxious, a summer-adventure vibe curdling into sustained dread, best suited to a weekend afternoon with the sofa to yourself rather than a late-night watch. Violence is present and occasionally brutal, with a few sudden, startling injuries and threatening confrontations, though there is no gore for its own sake, and there is some strong language and a brief sexual scene. The emotional register is pressured and fraught, following a strained couple forced to cooperate under threat and rediscover what they can still rely on in each other. For viewers who want a tense outdoor thriller with a strong central performance from Meryl Streep and a grounded, marriage-centred core.
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