Friday, September 28, 2007 , Updated
Movie review: Into the Wild
Into the Wild
Freshly graduated from college with a promising future ahead, 22 year-old Christopher McCandless instead walked out of his privileged life and into the wild in search of adventure. What happened to him on the way transformed this young wanderer into an enduring symbol for countless people. Was Christopher McCandless a heroic adventurer or a naïve idealist, a rebellious 1990s Thoreau or another lost American son, a fearless risk-taker or a tragic figure who wrestled with the precarious balance between man and nature? McCandless' quest took him from the wheat fields of South Dakota to a renegade trip down the Colorado River to the non-conformists' refuge of Slab City, California, and beyond. Along the way, he encountered a series of colorful characters at the very edges of American society who shaped his understanding of life and whose lives he, in turn, changed. In the end, he tested himself by heading alone into the wilds of the great North, where everything he had seen and learned and felt came to a head in ways he never could have expected.
Source: Cinema Source
I’m going to go in a little bit of different direction with this review. First, I haven’t done a review in a while, so I kind of feel like changing it up, and second, Into the Wild is the type of film that’s virtually impossible to talk about without getting into the details of the story. So consider this your warning – if you don’t want to know anything about what happens in this movie, stop reading now.
Okay, everybody ready? Into the Wild is the story of Christopher McCandless, a recent college graduate who, in 1992, decided to give up virtually all of his worldly possessions, including money, cease contact with his family and friends, and travel the country on God’s good graces. His ultimate goal, to go to Alaska and live off the land, would also become his downfall, as he was found dead a few months after arriving there. But his ultimate demise is not what Into the Wild is about – that much has been known for many years now thanks to news reports and Jon Krakauer’s book of the same name, upon which this movie is based. I have not read the book, and if you have the choice to see the movie before reading the book, I highly suggest you do so. Like any adaptation, I’m sure it leaves out or alters many important moments, and the film is too good to risk diminishing it by going into it with preconceived expectations.
What the film (and probably the book) does is give you a battle of emotions throughout. On the one hand, not many people are likely to empathize with the decisions McCandless makes, even though his parents are presented in such a way as to make his disappearance seem welcoming. But not enough background information is given in the film to completely warrant his decisions and several people he meets along the way seem like they should seriously test his resolve over what he is doing. On the other hand, McCandless (as effortlessly played by the superb Emile Hirsch) is obviously clear-headed about his decisions. He doesn’t decide on a whim to drop out of contact; this is clearly something he had been thinking about for a long time. The calm way he is able to stay focused on his ultimate goal despite emotional road blocks being thrown in his way also gives credence to this idea. You yearn for him stop his journey at various points, especially one significant period spent with a widower (played by Hal Holbrook), but also realize that his need to explore everything he wants to explore will always rule his choices.
The film does present a very appealing case for dropping out of "civilized" society, though. McCandless takes things further than most of us would ever dare, but he also gives a clarity to what life should be about: the relationships, the simple things. At one point, one character tells him that he should find a job and do something with his life. McCandless replies that careers are a 20th century invention and thus not necessary. I doubt many of us would give up our jobs in order to find ourselves, but as the old saying goes, "No one ever comes to the end of their lives and says, 'I wish I had worked more.'" Finally, writer/director Sean Penn does a fantastic job of essentially letting the landscape tell the story for him. McCandless' travels through Arizona, California, and Alaska are the ultimate travelogue of the American west, and any nature lover can immediately see the appeal of what McCandless was trying to do.
There are a few minor flaws to the film. Again, not having read the book, it is never made expressly clear how everything that he did in between the time he disappeared and the time he was found dead is known. We do witness him writing in a journal at times, and if that was what led to knowing everything, I wish they would have let McCandless speak for himself. Instead, his sister (played by Jena Malone) is used as a narrator, mostly talking about their past and why she thinks he ran away. By using her instead of him, it only serves to separate the audience from the story more than is necessary. While we shouldn’t discount the feelings of the family, they play a very small part of the movie as a whole, and having one of them as a narrator seems distracting and superfluous.
But overall, Into the Wild is a moving tribute to a man/boy who, with the same series of events, both wasted his life and found things worth living for. That may sound contradictory, but it’s the truth, at least in this case. And the journey he makes toward both ends makes for one powerful film.
