Into The Wild, directed by Sean Penn and based on the book by Jon Krakauer, tells the true story (though elements are fictionalized) of Christopher McCandless. Escaping a dire home situation after graduation from college, McCandless, who goes by the name of Alexander Supertramp, embarks on more than two years of wandering across the United States, seeking more and more remote wilderness, until he ends up in Alaska where he, essentially, starves to death.
The closest analogue is probably Grizzly Man, and I have to admit that I watched this prepared to dislike it intensely. As with Grizzly Man, the lead distains human companionship (McCandless was befriended and helped by a number of apparently fine people who cared deeply for him), and believes that only in the wildest, most rugged parts of nature can he find himself. His death is, in a sense, inevitable. But the movie is actually very touching (with the occasional mis-step from Penn) and ultimately powerful. You can read it as a critique of McCandless’ if you like, in that his human companions — played almost uniformly superbly by Catherine Keener, Vince Vaughn, Hal Holbrook and others — demonstrate the importance of social relationships.
But the film works ultimately because it, and the country and scenery, are simply gorgeous. The Colorado river, Salton Sea and mountains of Alaska are the stars, and just occasionally you can see why McCandless gave his life to get closer to them.
I liked the film, too. More on its subject in a moment, but while appreciative of the attention to place/scenery and the great performances by some of the supporting cast, I really liked the improvisational energy of the whole film–as if Penn was just filming, filming, filming, and what he puts together is a sloppy, inclusive record that is more humanistic than the storyline in its barest-bones form. (I recall in particular a scene with Chris eating an apple, talking to it about how it’s the best apple ever, and we seem to get 4 or 5 takes, all jumbled together, closing with Emile H staring goofy-eyed into the camera.)
I particularly hated the family stuff: exaggerated, overdetermined plot hinge (far more aggressively, aggravatingly ‘central’ to Chris’ motivations in the film than they were in the book), and some ham-on-cheese acting.
The voiceover blew, as well.
I regretted losing from the book what was probably unadaptable: the meta-narrative reflections on the literary history of this idea of escaping from people and finding self. The author (Jon Krakauer) even riffs on his own tarnished romanticization of these ideals… and that critical analysis goes a long way toward complicating the story of Chris McCandless. He’s even more troubling as a “hero” in the book than the film, even as both book and film do a good job at capturing what was so alluring (about this guy *and* about his quest).
I just hated the central character and his personal ideology bugged the hell out of me (though I did like the supporting characters very much: Holbrook, Keener, her hippy husband, the waify girl with a guitar, Vince Vaughn). It is a beautiful film to look at, though I found the style of the film a bit too much of a seventies pastiche (if that makes sense). I agree with Reynolds on this one; I wish Penn had been a bit more critical of his central character. McCandless’ Keatsean/Byronesque journey was a bit too much Romantic baloney for this viewer.
That is exactly why I expected to dislike the movie: his personal ideology drives me up the wall (as with Grizzly Man). But I thought that the secondary characters and the structure of the movie ultimately redeemed it.