Ken Kwapis directed a film titled A Walk in the Woods, a comedy-drama inspired by author Bill Bryson’s novel of the same name. The book came out in 1998 and the movie in early September 2015. It is a biographical comedy which means that it is more or less based on the life of the writer of the book, Bill Bryson.
The leading character goes by the name, Bill Bryson, and we follow his journey, full of adventure and peace-hunting, through the Appalachian hiking trails. He goes on this adventure with one of his friends, Katz, with whom he had lost contact years ago and had finally managed to rediscover.
With Bill wanting to find his inner peace and calm, and Katz taking the word ‘adventure’ very seriously, the two are stuck together on a journey, which we promise, is going to be hilarious. The movie, A Walk in the Woods has actor Robert Redford in the leading role of Bill Bryson and Nick Nolte in the role of the long-lost friend, Stephen Katz.
Apart from the two leading men, we also see actress Emma Thompson, Kristen Schaal, Nick Offerman, Mary Steenburgen, Hayley Lovitt, and R. Keith Harris in action in the film. Our leading actor, Robert Redford had been interested in turning the book into a movie project for the longest time.
Since, sometime in 2005, he had publicly announced that he wanted to start this project and had been actively on the lookout for talented directors who could shape the film. With Kwapis as the final director for the movie, Redford had initially wanted to bring Paul Newman on board as well, to be his costar, for the role of Katz, but with the unfortunate passing of the actor, Redford went ahead with his second best choice, Nick Nolte.
The shoot for the movie began in the summer of 2014, and the project finally premiered in early 2015 at the Sundance Film Festival, after which it was launched for a theatrical release later in the same year. The movie is nothing we have never seen before. The humor does not knock your socks off, and the plot does not leave you stunned.
Despite casting such talented actors and putting years’ worth of effort into making this project a reality, this movie is mediocre at best, barely managing to get a big laugh from its audience. This is not to say that the predictable script and still-funny jokes don’t hit the spot and leave you feeling good.
Filming Locations
The movie was mainly revealed to be filmed at Amicalola Falls State Park in Georgia. The plot of the movie seems to be set almost entirely around the Appalachian Trails, a hiking path that many enjoy and find pleasure in spotting throughout the film.
During one of the early scenes, fans were able to spot and recognize the St. Bridget Catholic Church located in Sharon, Connecticut. Anyone who has visited the Appalachian Trails would be able to spot the trail portal as well, where the two leads were spotted together.
The movie is shot throughout the Appalachian Trails that run over two thousand miles in length. A significant portion of the film was shot at the south end of the entire course, and one of the main spots that happens to be a popular attraction, even in real life, that fans managed to spot in the film, was the Fontana Dam.
While the entire hiking trail is long enough to pass through almost fourteen states, most of the filming for A Walk in the Woods remained limited to the state of Georgia. Hikers who are familiar with the trail happily spotted Dawsonville, Georgia, where the Amicalola Falls State Park is along with The Lodge, also located near the Amicalola Falls.
A restaurant from the town of Marietta can also be spotted in the scene where the two friends sit down to have proper southern-style cooking.
Considering most of the frames in the movie are woods, it is difficult to guess where, specifically, they film in the entire span of the trail. But do not let this stop you from binging the movie and getting ready for a little adventure yourself.
