Pick of the Week: "Into the Wild"
7/3/08
1/2I cannot in good conscience review this gem in a vacuum. The spirit of Chris McCandless, the young wayward traveler whose true-life journey we follow in "Into The Wild," is something I share almost completely, even if don't share all of his motivations. The film chronicles his departure from modern society and his two-year trek across the American wild, living off the land and crossing paths with a wide variety of vibrant characters along the way. He is searching for escape from a turbulent homelife. He is searching for freedom from the materialistic societal constraints. He searching for spiritual salvation.
But above all, he is searching for completion, to find that true part of himself that he hasn't been able to uncover while going through the motions that are expected of him by family and the "civilized" world.
Director Sean Penn has always been an old, sensitive soul trapped in the body of a petulant young man, and here he shows a deep-rooted empathy that comes through in every beautifully rendered shot. He also displays the maturity of a responsible filmmaker by not presenting Chris as a Christ-figure or his journey as the rightful path that everyone should take. Instead, he simply bares the soul of this young man and the progression of events his heart logically takes him through. Chris is shown to be both appealingly earnest and annoyingly petulant, boundlessly loving and emotionally self-centered. He is an intelligent, complex, and confused young man, of which there are many in the world pursuing different paths to find and round themselves. But this journey is his path, not necessarily the right one, and Penn's greatest achievement is getting that truth across while at the same time making Chris's travails a heartrending and exhilarating triumph of the capacity of the human soul to throw off its binds and simple be.
Emile Hirsch is a star in the making, and he he disappears into the role of Chris and makes even his faults appealing most of the time, which is crucial for the character to be fully realized in the context of the story. Despite the traumas of Chris's past, Hirsch's eyes always convey a sense of awe and a lack of judgment. Chris has made up his mind on the merits of rigid societal construction, but he has an enormous capacity for empathy and a distinct sense for human possibility. He thinks the human heart can do anything, and he gifts that belief to everyone he encounters. Hirsch never fails to make this trait completely believable, and it keeps us on Chris's side even as he rambles naively or makes those foolish mistakes so tied to the rawness of youth.
Early on the viewer can sense that Chris's two-year journey is destined for tragedy, and although he never makes it out of the harsh Alaskan wilderness, the film avoids descending into the bleak, soul-smashing tragedy it could have easily become, and instead leaves us with the powerful impression of a life well lived. His fate is a terrible one, and Penn is unflinching is his portrayal of a young man finding some of his most important answers a little too late. But while we can shed a tear for this fallen searcher, we can also rejoice in a certain triumph embedded in his odyssee, and you'll feel more alive for having followed him through it.