After reading through the book “Into the Wild†by Jon Krakauer, there was much interest to see how director Sean Penn would bring this fascinating, yet heart-wrenching true story to the screen. There was hope that he wouldn’t turn the story of Chris McCandless (aka Alex Supertramp) into a superficial adventure tale, or worse, a story about another idealistic youth gone wrong.
Luckily, Penn was surprisingly keen to the fine line that the story walked, and worked hard with everything from the actor Emile Hirsch’s training for the main role, which included losing 40-plus pounds, to coming face to face with a grizzly bear, to the masterfully-crafted soundtrack by Eddie Vedder.
After graduating from a prestigious college, coming from a well-to-do family (Chris’ father is a NASA scientist), Chris donates his $24,000 in remaining bank account funds and takes to the road. Along the way, he abandons his car and burns the few dollars in his pocket, committing to live a life completely free of modern and man-made restraints. The story as summarized sounds simple and predictable: One would think that boy takes to the road – boy learns lessons – boy returns home to his family with a newfound love of life. But the truth is much like Chris’ depth of intelligence and curiosity.
The real story is easily revealed if one cares to see beyond plotlines.
The film spans the time of Chris’ college graduation to the end of his travels, which Penn frames with title cards including “Chapter 1,†“Adolescence†and “Wisdom.†I can’t help but refute some reviewers that have called this move “self-aggrandizing,” because that is an easy way to explain something that is hard to accept – that all of our lives can be simplified this way because there is a beginning, middle and end for us all. This seems like an easy target, as are the notes scrawled on the screen that are taken from Chris’ journal. It is also easy to criticize Chris’ life in general, as some have used words such as “spoiled brat” and phrases such as “the film wants to be deeper than it is.” Anyone that cannot see beyond that can’t see the irony the scene in which Chris is complaining about “society†in the bar, and Vince Vaughn’s character, Wayne Westerberg, turns to him and says something to the effect of: Don’t get too deep, kid – you don’t want to go there because you will see the truth, but you might never come out the other side to tell the tale in your own words.
So, we are left with Krakauer’s and Penn’s interpretations, which are the same as everyone else that Chris left in his wake; wanting to know details about his life, wanting to be with him, wanting to know more. Everyone that met him must have known that he grasped something, or was on the cusp of grasping something that we all want a piece of; peace, understanding and, ultimately, meaning. This leaves the biggest impression – the fact that the people, who met Chris and knew him only for a flicker of time, seemed to be forever changed and impressed by his person. Not many people have that effect on others, and the ones that do become legends – the stuff that dreams are made of. These larger-than-life figures that can only be appreciated when we also see the humanity behind them, and in Chris’ case, we see that vulnerability to the core.
One can go on about the cinematography and the music (which, to refute another critic, absolutely adds to the film because it evokes the emotions of the scenes), but what stands out is how someone that you’ve never met, through the media of book and film, has had the ability to capture the audience’s hearts and break it simultaneously.
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