INTO THE WILD

Director: Sean Penn
Starring: Emile Hirsch

I'm back in the USA, folks, and ready to review. I'm glad to say that my first film since returning was a very, very good one. Like millions of others I was a huge fan of the bestselling Jon Krakauer book "Into the Wild". Wonderfully, seeing the Sean Penn film almost felt like seeing a new story to me, but really that's just because it's been so long since I've read the book. The film itself was a dramatization of the nonfiction story, but even with the amped up drama factor it still felt like the original. Or what I remember of it at least ...

Luckily I do recall the central premise of Krakauer's great bit of nonfiction (and even greater bit of jouralistic reasearch). Chris McCandless is a young man overcome with wanderlust, like so many people, but especially the young. He may be on a track to Harvard law school, but he ends up giving away all his money, abandoning his car, and wandering the western US like a hippie, hobo, and adventurer all in one. He canoes down the dangerous Colorado river into Mexico. He works for short spells at short term jobs. He eventually makes his way to Alaska where he walks off into the wild with a 10 pound bag of rice and endless optimism. Weeks later his dead body is found in an abandoned bus by some hunters.

Through Chris' own writings, and the trail of people he's met while on the road Krakauer gives us a wonderfully balanced, and wonderfully researched story about this young man's journeys, both geographical and pyschological. Some readers of the tale immediately react that this was just some young fool. I've seen quotes from some Alaskans who feel he's just some "lower 48'er" who didn't understand the realities of nature. Some other readers view him as a tragic anti-hero on the level of Jack Kerouac's Sal Paridise. There's no doubt that wanderlust is a very real and very powerful human trait. One that's seen through the ages. One that's resulted in some of mankind's greatest triumphs. Others still see a lonely and confused young man running from a dysfunctional family. The story here is all about the Why? The book is smart enough to not give us answers, only the questions.

The film, on the other hand, may be a little more pat with its answers, and that is the only fault I can find with it. Generally the film does a great job of staying true to the story. "Into the Wild", the film, certainly amps up the drama of Krakauer's story, but not in any detrimental way I think. The same mystery story is on screen (the Why?), but we also get more drama with the people he meets. As I said, the screenplay is a bit more pointed in its theme, however. Here Chris McCandless (Emile Hirsch) is on the road, and into the wild, because of his inability to connect with people - and the blame for that squarely lies with the parents.

For me, I think that there is quite a lot of truth to this, but it's probably not the whole story. I've known any number of people who've dropped out of society to one degree or another, and overwhelmingly their own fears, and family, and faults were the heart of their decision. But I think wanderlust is something probably quite a bit more than just that. Down deep, it's heart may be with how we connect with others, but "adventure", and the "seeing next horizon" is ingrained in our brains, I think. Our species seems to be natural explorers. Of course our species is also (rather obviously) naturally social. There's the conflict. We need each other. We need the group, but there's that urge to go out and find more, to seek more, to see more. Philisophically, poetically, geographically, whatever.

Into the Wild is good enough to capture all this, and quite a bit more that I'm just not talented enough to put in words. It's a very good story, and a very good film.

Standouts: The story, the direction, the acting. It's a fine film all around.
Blowouts: I thought the screenplay was just a little too over-insistant about his "aloneness", although there's no doubt it's critical. I'll admit that this complaint is rather minor, and perhaps just my personal taste, and that others may like a lot.

Grade: A