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Rating:  - KS Movie Buff
A compelling story! I've wondered time to time about the "why" behind these characters we've all run across in life. I thought the director did a great job in asking us all to really question the way we've chosen to live and have compassion for those that choose differently. The movie did drag a little in parts and I did wonder how much of it really was true, but overall, worth watching.
Rating: - Stuff of Dreams
Sean Penn as a director is at least as interesting as is his work from acting and this movie proves it once again. It is the true story of Chris McCandless, wonderfully portrayed by Emile Hirsch, who, graduating at 22, seems to have a very promising future ahead of him being admitted into Harvard Law, but instead chooses not to fulfill his parent's dreams for him but pursue his own. In doing so he wanders through the US after leaving behind his worldly goods, including giving away 20000 dollars of savings to charity.
He breaks off all contact with his family and in the voiceover of his sister we gradually are handed pieces of the puzzle that lead him to do so. After more or less 2 years the trip ends in Alaska, after we've enjoyed a number of his interesting encounters with other people and many beautiful landscapes that made me want to pack my bags right there and then for another one of my cross country hikes.
The development of the rather naive Chris is both fascinating as well as moving and Penn treats his journey as a classic novel, even up to dividing his movie into chapters with titles like "birth" or "adolescence", for those who weren't quite clever enough to pick up on it.
What annoyed me the most about the movie was the music, which tries too hard to convey a certain atmosphere which distracts more than makes you focus. Penn seems to forget at times that old lesson that less is more and that the story is so powerful, it doesn't need this artificial boost of sentiment, but I guess being American, he just couldn't help himself, it is a national affliction after all.
However it's one of very few issues I had with the movie that signifies a marvelous contribution with full adherence to the rules and laws of a traditional road movie.
It's obvious that Penn has a lot of respect for this intelligent young man whose mind lives in his treasured books of writers like Tolstoy and Thoreau from whom he receives his life's lessons that serve to fuel his dreams of a pure and uncompromising life far away from anything materialistic and the corrupting influence of society. Unfortunately our hero is not able to see that all his philosophizing and travelling is just a self-deception to avoid dealing with the legacy of the dysfunctional past with his relatives and rather embrace a romantic philosophy of life in general and himself in particular. It is tragic that he eventually paid such a high price for this delusion.
Until quite far into the movie Sean Penn doesn't take any critical distance from his subject but rather chooses to immerse his movie in romantic notions and atmospheric photography and rather trite repetition of the same adolescent ramblings.
As a viewer however this doesn't bother you at all and on first viewing you're eager to embrace the dramatic events and dreams of youth, passion and hope that we all want to catch again, even though at a certain point we learn that, though not an illusion, at least for those that have not yet sought refuge in misanthropy (a flight just as effective and opposite to the one Chris McCandless took), there is a more noble, though less attractive on the outside, heroism in defying the mud of day to day life in the mist of it rather than seeking oblivion in the remote wilderness. It's a little too easy and a bit like giving up of whom we are in our most fundamental level of being: a social animal. Chris McCandless too, in his last note, in one of his treasured books between the printed lines that so inspired him, comes to this conclusion and it is truly a heart breaking moment in the film.
Rating: - Independence taken to the extreme
I may have liked this movie for different reasons than some of the other reviewers. I didn't necessarily find it inspiring or particularly beautiful, but I did think it was very intelligent, thought provoking, consistent, and well directed/acted. It's basically a film about independence and freedom, and how those can be terrible, isolating things when taken to the extreme. For those who thought the minor characters were too distracting, try to think about them in that context.
It's almost like the minor characters are there to warn the main character that even though living your own life is great, a lack of human interaction makes that freedom painful. These are lessons he fails to realize at every turn, whomever he meets, (instead he feels like he is there to enlighten them) and this selfish interpretation of independence is his tragedy.
Think about why he dies: not only has he tried to do everything himself, which is a mistake on this kind of trip, (again, there were warning signs, like he should have figured this out when the moose killing thing went bad) but he's either so devoted to his dream or so frightened to go back and face the family he's running away from that there is nowhere to run to anymore. I guess living by independence means dying by it.
There's a key scene in the middle, where he goes to the homeless shelter in LA, then sees himself getting sucked into the upper middle class hypocrisy he hates. Even though this is irrational -- if he can strike out on his own with a backpack, he can also do so in a more socially integrated way -- he turns away from going back to his old name. He does realize eventually that it was a mistake, but like all tragic figures, it is only after it is too late to change anything.
I think most people knew a guy like this in college, the upper middle class "rebel" who could have done anything and then took to the road after graduation, but eventually came back to sell out and work on wall street. maybe that's why this book was so popular -- because this guy took it to the extreme and he died, thus reinforcing others' decisions to rebel a little, but then run back home to mommy and daddy. Put in that way, the people who like the book and film for these reasons don't come across so well.
Truly a provocative and interesting film -- those are just my thoughts, but I think you should see it and decide for yourself.
Rating:  - Why are you so 'Into' Into the Wild?
Into the Wild has been in my friend's DVD player for about a month. She has been watching it constantly. I finally got a chance to see for myself, and found it to be a fascinating and compelling story, based on a real person, who may have been tilting at windmills like Don Quixote in his quest for freedom and survival in the extremes of wild nature, but nevertheless, touched the lives of all he encountered along the way.
Chris McCandless (Emile Hirsch) has just graduated from college, with excellent grades, but instead of either graduate school or a career, he chooses instead to go into the wild. He donates his trust fund to charity, burns his money, and abandons his car. He renames himself Alexander Supertramp, and begins his quest to live up to his new name. His parents, Walt and Billie McCandless (Marcia Gay Harden and William Hurt) are bewildered and hire an investigator to find him, but to no avail. His sister Carine, who also serves as an additional narrator, is hurt that he doesn't call her, either. But she offers insight into what may have driven him off, comparing him to fine crystal that nevertheless is fragile and needs protection.
Along the way he meets hippies Rainey & Jan Burres (Brian Dierker and Catherine Keener). Later, he works on a farm for Wayne Westerberg (Vince Vaughn). He also befriends lonely leather engraver Ron Franz (Hal Holbrook). He kayaks all the way to Mexico and back, rides the rails, visits Slab City in the desert, works in a fast food restaurant, always working towards his goal of surviving a harsh winter in the wilds of Alaska. He reaches Alaska and makes his final stand in an abandoned bus...
Into the Wild was directed by Sean Penn. Great job, Sean. He waited 10 years to make the film, making sure that he had the approval and support of the McCandless family. Everything was filmed on location, and Sean Penn takes full advantage with excellent cinematography. Some of the cast were the actual people from the real life story, such as Jim Gallien, who gives the wanderer boots as he goes into the wild. Brian Deirker was originally hired as a technical consultant for the river rafting, but at Emile Hirsch's suggestion, cast in the role of hippie motorhomer Rainey.
It features music composed and performed by Eddie Vedder. When Sean Penn called and asked him to do it, he agreed on the spot. I am not a fan of Pearl Jam, mainly because of Vedder's voice, which sounds phoney and cartoonish. But he has really matured, and there is just a touch of the cartoonishness in his voice to give it a bit of character and identity. The music is excellent, great acoustic guitar and the singing surprisingly good, it really adds to the film experience. Vedder does the bulk of the music, but there are also a few songs by Kaki King, some others, and of course we get to hear Roger Miller's "King of the Road," which is paraphrased and quoted in the final manifesto.
Besides the music, there are also quotes from literature on title cards between scenes, such as:
There is a pleasure in the pathless woods
(from Childe Harold, Canto iv, Verse 178)
There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but Nature more,
-- Lord Byron, (George Gordon)
The cast was all really good, with the well known actors and unknowns alike seeming totally authentic. I especially liked Vince Vaughn as someone who both mocks and admires the young man's ambitions. "Can't be juggling blood and fire all the time!"
Also there is a great encounter with Ron Franz (Hal Holbrook). The lonely old man looks askance at Supertramp's vagabond lifestyle, but considers his challenge to get out of his workshop and see the world. The encounter offers director Sean Penn a great chance for his protagonist to illustrate his saga by carving his story onto a leather belt:
Ron Franz: What does the "N" stand for?
Christopher McCandless: North.
Ron Franz: [sounding surprised and frustrated] Alaska?
Once he reaches Alaska, he continues carving out his story on a board he finds in the 'Magic Bus.'
Christopher McCandless: Two years he walks the earth. No phone, no pool, no pets, no cigarettes. Ultimate freedom. An extremist. An aesthetic voyager whose home is the road. Escaped from Atlanta. Thou shalt not return, 'cause "the West is the best." And now after two rambling years comes the final and greatest adventure. The climactic battle to kill the false being within and victoriously conclude the spiritual pilgrimage. Ten days and nights of freight trains and hitchhiking bring him to the Great White North. No longer to be poisoned by civilization he flees, and walks alone upon the land to become lost in the wild. - Alexander Supertramp May 1992
10 movies that pertain to Into the Wild
Alpha Dog (Widescreen Edition) (2006) .... Johnny Truelove was played by Emile Hirsch.
Lords of Dogtown (Unrated Extended Cut) (2005) .... Jay was played by Emile Hirsch. He is the skater who stays true to the skakeboarder's credo.
The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys (2002) .... Francis Doyle was played by Emile Hirsch.
Pollock (2000) Marcia Gay Harden won an Oscar for Best Actress in a Supporting Role.
Kiss of the Spider Woman (Two-Disc Collector's Edition) - Amazon.com Exclusive (1985) .... Luis Molina was played by William Hurt, and he won the Oscar.
Body Heat (Deluxe Edition) (1981) .... Ned Racine was played by William Hurt, and the Body Heat was generated by Kathleen Turner.
Capote (2005) .... Nelle Harper Lee was played by Catherine Keener, and she was nominated for an Oscar.
Being John Malkovich (1999) .... Maxine Lund was played by Catherine Keener, and she was nominated for another Oscar.
Swingers (1996) .... Trent Walker was the breakout role for Vince Vaughn. He was so money.
Hurlyburly (New Line Platinum Series) (1998) .... Sean Penn was great as Eddie, a sleazy Hollywood agent in competition with Kevin Spacey. Hurly Burly is my personal favorite, though he won an Oscar for Mystic River, and was nominated for Sweet and Lowdown, I Am Sam, and Dead Man Walking. Let's not forget Colors or Casualties of War. And who could forget Fast Times at Ridgemont High? I bet he'd love to forget Shanghai Surprise.
Rating: - The True Great Escape
This movie is a great look at the rebellion and confusion of a person out of college and tired of the pressures and conformity of society. It brings a beautiful and in-depth look into the mind of a young man not sure what he wants to do with is life, but pretty sure what he doesn't want. I thought it was phenomenal especially if you wonder if the grass is greener on this other side of untamed life. A young male's mind will relate with his stuggles and envy his passion for pursuing his "truth." A bit long for some, I absolutely enjoyed this wonder film and at this point in my life, I couldn't relate more.
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