Into the Wild is one of those movies whose images stay with you after the screen goes dark. This is a tribute to the subject-- a tragic and confused young pseudo idealist, Christopher McCandless-- and Sean Penn and his crew.
McCandless has just graduated from Emory University. He's bright, well-liked, talented, the world is his for the taking-- it seems. Then he chucks it all, burns his money, abandons his vehicle, donates his graduate school fund to charity and hits the road. He's a leatherfoot, hoofing all across the country from Atlanta to South Dakota, on to California and finally to his goal of the utopian loner's dream world of "Alaska". Alaska is quoted here because it represents far more for McCandless than just a remote place full of emptiness and nature. It represents the "wild" - that gorgeous and challenging place where he can find himself, or so he thinks.
He's on a wild goose chase with himself but doesn't quite understand or realize it. He thinks he's stuffing life and experience and learning into all the time that he has-- he's abandoned everything including his sister and parents. In fact, he refuses to communicate with them at all. Their heartbreak, worry, fears, and frustrations are with us the viewer at all times and we wonder (as do a few characters in the film) silently, "how can he do this to them"?
Chris hits the road hard. He takes odd jobs, and goes from frustrated relationship to the next one. But they always are frustrating because he simply will not give of himself. They aren't frustrating for him, but for those who want to befriend him. His search for personal meaning is truly little more than an avoidance of his own personal demons, mostly from his parents' history and rocky marriage. He is surrounded by love, people who want him, his company, his brilliance and soft, caring approach to the world. He is attractive to others, but he loathes himself somehow. In the wilds of the Alaskan wilderness he thinks he will find what he is looking for and he does, but not in the way that he expected.
Again and again, people that Chris meets offer their friendship to him and sometimes their love. But he cannot accept it. Something in him prevents him from accepting love or truly giving it. Perhaps it would be contrary to the loner path that he'd chosen?
This is a sad story, so beautifully filmed. The acting is spot on, too.
Hal Holbrook plays an old man with a painful secret of his own. He knows that Chris and he are two of a kind and need each other. We in the audience also know this. Holbrook is Chris' chance for stability and a home, the true path to insight for someone whose core issues are built upon a perceived betrayal and lack of love from others, mainly his parents. It's a hard moment for the viewer when Chris walks away from Holbrook abandoning another fortunate opportunity for healing and happiness, but it is not so hard for Chris whose focus is solely on getting to his personal nirvana that he understands and expects Alaska to be.
Alaska is a beautiful but challenging place. Superbly filmed, it is easy to see how Chris would want to be there, challenge himself and try to find himself, alone-- try to find a way to fit in with others which is truly the issue-- alone.
The exact cause of Chris' death is not fully known. The book's author and Penn both make the case the McCandless accidentally poisoned himself. But later tests on the suspected plant material recovered from his camp site cast serious doubt on this theory as no poison was found. According to the diaries that he left behind he had decided to return to civilization but a raging river full of spring melt prevented him from doing so. He stayed in his camp, wasting away. But only a mile away was a perfectly usable crossing, and less than half a mile away was a still part of the river where he could have fished to his heart's content with only his hands as the fish were so plentiful there. But he did neither and apparently chose to stay and face his demons and his new understandings alone.
It is not clear if Chris is a hero-- the lone introvert heading into the wilderness akin to Thoreau to find the "truth", or rather a spoiled city boy with only ignorance and dreams and personal pain and perhaps some mental illness driving him on.
The locals in the wilds of Alaska often speak of such people who come to Alaska to find themselves, swollen with pride like the rivers full of melting snows. And they have little respect for them, as they tempt fate and the extreme wilderness and usually lose.
McCandless affected everyone he met in a positive way. His writings are those of a young man still trying to understand but so deeply haunted by something he could only identify at the very end that was at the heart of his troubles. The tears of his parents, his friends, and even his own at the end are palatable in this beautiful film by Sean Penn.
This is a deeply troubling story of someone who so needed help, was offered it-- but would not or could not accept it.
The world is full of Chris McCandlesses going about their daily routines. And perhaps this is why his story has such resonance for so many. He chose to break out of the life he was living, a life that gave him no comfort or solace-- and stride into the unknown to find one that worked for him. It may be a loner's story or a vagabond's tale, but there is a universality about the demons that haunted Chris, and his single-minded yet unfortunate response to them.
There is no glory here, and little to reflect upon but the pain of someone who is unable to stop, unable to find another path-- until his dream of Alaska and the wilderness with all its perils was met and its lessons pulled from it at whatever the cost. This is a superb film.
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Reviews with images
I really enjoyed it.
I loved everything in the movie, especially the quality of the product and all the scenes in the wilderness. The product is very fine and arrived on good time. I received a good service. Thankyou.
Top reviews from other countries
Amazon カスタマー
若者の純粋なまでの探求精神を表現した、若いがゆえに恐れを知らない一途な気持ち表現した、青年も、壮年も、羨む心の映画でした。素晴らしいですね！
Reviewed in Japan on November 3, 2021
alexboyer
Peli imprescindible (y en castellano)
Reviewed in Spain on January 6, 2014