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Review by David DiMichele

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Twenty-two year-old Christopher McCandless has just graduated from Emory University and despite plans to go to Harvard law school, the kid is just not happy. Some of his ideas would make you call him wise but other of those ideas would make you call him a psychopath. The world he wished existed exists only in his brain and in the wilderness. It seems that it's his ideas that drive him away from his family. Everyone deserves to get away from the everyday world now and then, but not to this kind of extreme. I believed everything about Into the Wild except the reason behind the handsome young man leaving his home. So, when the ending came, it was hard for me to feel any sort of sympathy for our journeyman.

The wild is a beautiful place and director Sean Penn provides us with some exquisite shots that wouldn’t feel the same without Eddie Vedder’s haunting guitar score. And we can understand what it is that attracts McCandless (Emile Hirsch) to the wild. It’s the lonely nights living in an isolated bus in Alaska, the waves of the oceans, the warm nights in the desert singing songs with a young girl. But before you decide to pack up and leave your family behind, make sure you know just how dangerous the wild can be. For example, early on our hero tries to shoot a goat but he just can’t pull the trigger. Christopher is too innocent and sheltered to survive out in the wild.

His family is a wreck. The father (William Hurt) and his mother (Marcia Gay Harden) are filthy rich and fight with each other every day. Christopher and his sister were born as bastard children and can’t shake the fact that their father was married to another woman when he knocked up their mother. When he leaves, Christopher gives his college fund money to charity, cuts up his credit cards, birth certificates and social security card and tells nobody where he’s going. Occasional letters are sent to his sister in the first couple of months of his journey and that’s it. His family are left wondering if he’ll ever return home again.

The movie is told in flashbacks then present time and so on. I would have rather had the movie play out in real time but then there wouldn’t be any voiceover by his sister. The voiceover works sometimes but most of the time it feels like she’s reading from the pages of the true story written by Jon Krakauer. The McCandless family put their trust in Sean Penn (The Crossing Guard and The Pledge) to direct a movie that would clarify the life of their son. The intensity that Penn shows in his other action films doesn’t really come out in this film. Still, this is his best and most cherished work to date.

Christopher is sincere, humble, and loveable. The best scenes in the entire movie happen when Christopher (who changes his name to Alexander Supertramp) enters the lives of people he encounters on his journey to Alaska. The hippies that he meets are having problems with their relationship but when Alexander rolls into their camp he talks sense into the man. The man then says to him: “Are you Jesus?” Then he meets Wayne, a rancher in South Dakota. He helps him mow down wheat fields and strikes up a good relationship with him and then parts from him to only meet the hippies again. Along with them he meets a beautiful young girl, a singer, who falls in love with him in a matter of days. Finally he meets a lonely old man, Ron Franz (Hal Holbrook) who makes leather belts in his little garage. Alexander touches his life immensely. He helps Ron overcome his depression and makes him climb a mountain. For the time that 'Alexander’ is in his life, Ron becomes young again. In a gut-wrenching scene Ron asks him if he could adopt him. These people make him feel wanted. Long after he has left these people’s lives he’ll forever be remembered by them, the wisdom he pitched to them never forgotten and when we leave the theatre after seeing this young man’s journey, we’ll remember him forever as well, thanks to the wonderful performance by Emile Hirsch.

Film Rating: *** out of ****

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Comments (3)

Sean Penn is a wonderful filmmaker

Sean Penn in not only a terrifc actor but also an enlightened and dedicated filmmaker. I think only a few good actors become good directors, and he is simply one of the few.

early on our hero tries to shoot a goat but he just can’t pull the trigger. Christopher is too innocent and sheltered to survive out in the wild.

right on target! You said it perfectly. I think this sums up Christopher McCandless as a human being. He is too kind and too humble and too trusting.

The music is so haunting and so perfect too for the film. No wonder all i hear about Into the Wild are accolades and praises!

jedmed , December 05, 2007

HIRSCH

yea, thanks man...that scene really sold the movie to me and i hope Hirsch gets an acting nomination for this film...he's brilliant

dimichele305 , December 05, 2007

...

I really, REALLY liked this movie. Penn has really made a brilliant film. But it wouldn't have been at all possible without Hirsch's performance. What a job he did carrying this movie. In a quieter role, I hope Hal Holbrook gets a supporting nod. His scenes were really tough to watch because of the emotion he poured into the scenes.

Jeremy , December 05, 2007

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