Film Review: Into the Wild

[Spoiler Alert] The film we saw last night was Sean Penn's adaptation of Jon Krakauer's Into the Wild, the story of Chris McCandless, a young man just out of college who donates his savings to charity (all $24k of it), burns his money, leaves behind his car, and leads a vagabond existence that ultimately leads to his death in the wilderness of Alaska. I read the book some years ago, long enough in the past to have forgotten the details if not the overall arc. The film gives concreteness to some areas of the story that were mere speculation in the book while leaving out much of the speculation that led to thoughtful analysis. It's an inevitable trade off, and not an unwelcome one.

In the deal, we get the powerful visuals of the wide-open American West from South Dakota to California and Mexico to Alaska and plenty of places in between. It also gives a better opportunity to see Chris McCandless (Emile Hirsch) on a human level.

I found myself, much as when I read the book, torn between seeing McCandless and his story as appealing on the one hand and appalling on the other (more on that later). The portrayal of Penn's movie and Hirsch's acting lean largely toward appealing, and Penn might be faulted by some for loving his protagonist too much: he's presented almost as a saint or even a Christ-figure. After advising an aging-hippie character, he asks Chris "Are you Jesus?" and at another point we see Chris floating down a river on his back, arms out cruciform. We see toward the end a montage of all the characters whose lives he has touched, apparently for the better. He even remains celibate throughout the film, despite having an attractive young woman throw herself at him. Here, though, is also part of the humanization of Chris McCandless. Although his stated reason for not sleeping with this girl is her age (she's 16 while is 23), and there's an implication that he doesn't want to get her pregnant when he has no intention of sticking around, we've also seen Chris throughout the film as a character profoundly uncomfortable with sex and sexuality. That's not to reduce his decisions to mere psychological incapability, but to deepen the portrayal. It is also strongly implied that he is running away from his family's problems (a father who abused his wife, who denied the existence of a first wife and son, a mother who enabled the behavior, and perhaps most damning of all, a generic suburban lifestyle) rather than simply chasing his own dreams.

What is appealing in Chris's character is finally his strong sense of who he is, what he does and doesn't want, and the single-minded determination he does have to pursue it. He wants, first, to live his own life: not one dictated by the expectations of his parents or by the advantages they have given him (hence the abandonment of the $24k that his parents believed would be put toward Harvard Law, the car, and even the cash on hand). He finds this in a hobo lifestyle, living homeless up and down the country, finds that he can live just fine on the kindness of strangers and a little work here and there. He wants second to live a life of adventure, which he also finds. He tries out other lifestyles as well, working as a farm hand in South Dakota and pumping hunters for the knowledge he'll need for his ultimate adventure, a Jack London-inspired journey to the wilds of Alaska.

It's probably fair to say that, in the end, McCandless takes Thoreau more seriously than Thoreau did, and that's a large part of his appeal: his uncompromising rejection of conventional life in favor of something tested by himself, created by his own desires and experiences. Whereas Thoreau went into Concord and accepted meals, McCandless rejects the things that were given to him, the connections of family, pre-existing friendships and acquaintances, and finally puts himself beyond the help of anyone outside himself.

That, of course, is what does him in. For all his love of Jack London, it seems he could have stood to have read "To Build a Fire" more carefully. It's not the lack of a fire that kills McCandless, but just as the man in that story dies because he buys into the myth of a man's ability to single-handedly overcome all natural obstacles. Of course, he comes pretty close. He lived for several months in the Alaskan wilderness, so it's not as though he was totally unprepared or foolhardy, but a certain arrogance (shown elsewhere in the film, incidentally) finally does him in. He knows a fair bit before venturing out, but he doesn't know enough, and he doesn't know enough to know he doesn't know enough. 

The film indicates strongly that if he had survived, he would have been a changed person. Throughout the film, he was a character who drew the love of those around them but ultimately couldn't seem to return it, or at least loved his own goals and determination more. The sense the film gives is that if he had made it out alive, he would have seen the value of the people in his life more clearly.

Ultimately, McCandless seems to be portrayed--or even to have been--a tragic hero in the old sense: a character whose strengths are also his weaknesses, whose fall is brought about by his own characteristics, which are inherent in both his greatness and his doom. He seems a character who is meant to be admired but not, finally, emulated. He is meant to be learned from, I think, both as a positive example and a negative one. 

The acting is excellent throughout, the visuals are stunning, the script tight. Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam provided most of the soundtrack that isn't other artists, and he's put together a compelling soundscape that fits well with the tone of the film.  

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