Into the Wild

Review By: Michael Dance
michaelmdance@gmail.com

In 1990, when Christopher McCandless was twenty-two years old, he graduated from college, gave away his $24,000 in life savings to charity, burned everything in his wallet, and disappeared without telling his family. He hitchhiked from the east coast to South Dakota, Colorado, Arizona, and California under the name Alex Supertramp, occasionally taking jobs and falling in with people before inevitably disappearing again. In 1992, he was found dead from starvation inside an abandon bus near the Stampede Trail in Alaska.

The story is uncannily fascinating, and whatever your views on McCandless – saintly, idiotic, inspiring, pathetic – it sure makes for an amazing adventure. Jon Krakauer told McCandless’s story in the 1996 book Into the Wild, which Sean Penn read and immediately fell in love with. He went after the movie rights, but it took the better part of a decade for McCandless’s parents to make up their minds. They finally gave the go-ahead, Penn made the movie, and now Into the Wild is here, and it’s incredible.

Those of us weary of Penn’s image as a prominent Hollywood liberal needn’t worry – he doesn’t appear in the film and proves himself as a strong director, shooting on location throughout the country, and the only politics you see are when George Bush Sr. appears on a TV in the background to remind us we’re in the early ‘90s.

We start out at McCandless’s college graduation, and the early scenes with his stiff, wealthy parents, played by William Hurt and Marcia Gay Harden, are muted and stifling. (Their portrayal is unflattering to put it mildly, and it’s frankly impressive that they ever let the film get made.) Once McCandless breaks free, however, the color palette expands, the music starts rocking, and the film rides a wave of pure energy that never lets up. Even Penn’s direction, however, is only support for the central beacon of the movie, Emile Hirsch.

It’s a brilliant central performance. Hirsch simply lights up the screen and never burns out. Playing McCandless as he apparently was in real life – wild-eyed, simple-minded, and self-absorbed, but with an eagerness that was impossible not to be swept up in – he carries the film so tirelessly, it’s as though he’s always one step ahead of everyone on the crew. This is a film that required its star to be in nearly every scene, kayak through rapids, hike through every manner of wilderness, and literally starve himself, and Hirsch throws himself into everything with an excited smile. In a sense, he really does become McCandless for this role.

The screenplay, by Penn himself, is structured in a kind of ingenious way, equating the steps of McCandless’s journey with the progression of life. It’s split into five “chapters” – Adolescence, Adulthood, etc. – that succeeds in showing us how McCandless lived a very full life in only two years. The story ends in ...