Into the Wild

2007. Dir: Sean Penn. Starring: Emile Hirsch, Marcia Gay Harden, William Hurt, Catherine Keener and Vince Vaughn. ●●●●●

I won't be going to the cinema again until after my holiday so it's a number of random film reviews until then. First up was this smart and inventive biopic about the 21 year old Christopher McCandless (Hirsch) who gave away his college fund and led a life on the road, eventually escaping to the wilds in Alaska.

The film intercuts between 2 or 3 different time periods. The first, or last chronologically, is based around Chris' life in the wild, living in the Magic Bus (an abandoned vehicle in the Alaskan wilderness) and being completely self-sufficent. The second strand, which forms the largest proportion of the film, follows the previous 2 years as Chris leaves his parents and travels America, the third is the narration and flashbacks as witnessed by his sister Carine (Jena Malone). During those 2 years of wandering the earth, Chris encounters a number of other people who he alternatively learns from, and helps.



As with all films based on true events the structure, or at least the history, are already there. If this were an original narrative would director Penn have let it end the way it did, would the unresolved ties with the strings of encounters have been tied up, would Chris ever have understood the importance of family and love.

Instead we are forced to see how nature first entices McCandless then turns on him as thoroughly as his father used to beat his mother.

The performances across the board are incredible. Hirsch is captivating and utterly believable as the rich kid who's wise beyond his years, although Catherine Keener and Brian Dierker are the ones who will stay with me as a hippie couple coming to terms with their own sense of loss and showing Chris what love truly is. The film also features career highs from Vince Vaughn and Hal Holbrook.

The screenplay is a shade too literate, everyone is able to keep up with Chris' intellectualism and always say exactly what's on their mind, but this is a product of the road movie and keeps the plot moving.

The directorial choices of Penn are faultless from the structuring of the storylines to the occasion decision to break the fourth wall. And the use of Eddie Vedder's folk music soundtrack is inspired.

Of course I wanted to shout at McCandless, tell him not to go to Alaska, tell him to fall in love, have his heart broken, share life with as many people as possible. But then I can't, he has to learn his lessons himself, in the same way we all do and perhaps the greatest lesson McCandless learns is the one in writes in the margins of his Tolstoy novels: "Happiness only real when shared."