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INTO THE WILD
(15A, general release)
*

Into the Wild is based upon a book of the same name written in 1996 by Jon Krakauer about a young man called Christopher McCandless who turned his back on society in search of freedom & adventure. It has been carefully & skilfully adapted to the screen by Sean Penn in what is his most mature and consummate venture behind the camera yet with his previous offerings including The Indian Runner; The Crossing Guard & The Pledge.

It's 1990 and Christopher McCandless (Emile Hirsch) has grown disillusioned with the materialism of the world & the flawed nature of human relationships, two characteristics of modern life which in his eyes his parents Walt (William Hurt) & Billie (Marcia Gay Harden) represented. So after graduating from Emory University as a top student and accomplished athlete McCandless proceeds to abandon all his possessions, give away his entire $24,000 savings account away to Oxfam & torch his I.D. Spurred on by the writings of Tolstoy & Jack London, he yearns for the wide open; unspoilt spaces of the Alaskan wilderness and begins hitchhiking his way through the U.S to get there with his sister Carine (Jena Malone) narrating his journey.
Uncompromising; fiercely idealistic in his beliefs & seemingly arrogant in his approach to life, the charismatic McCandless believes that life's real pleasure is not derived from human relations or material possessions but in new experiences. However his charming; affable & honest nature combined with his youthful navet proves to be a magnetic draw to the people he meets along the way. His 1st encounter is with a pair of middle-aged hippies, Rainey (Brian Dierker) & Jan Bures (Catherine Keener) with whom he becomes fast friends. He moves on to work for a jovial grain harvester by the name of Wayne (Vince Vaughn), who gets into trouble with the police due to some "on the side" activities.
Then he heads westward by train & by sea, more determined than ever to get to his destination. He re-encounters his hippie friends & shares a short-lived romance with a teenage singer called Tracey (Kristen Stewart) at a gypsy camp. At his final stop before his trek "into the wild" he meets a lonely, aging man Ron Franz (Hal Holbrook) with whom he shares some wonderfully tender moments. These aforementioned people influence & are influenced by him in a significant way which brings him to a late & tragic realisation that "happiness is only real when it's shared".
Hirsh (Alpha Dog) is fantastic as the charming yet complicated young McCandless conveying perfectly his childlike enthusiasm; stubborn allegiance to his principals and unquenchable desire for freedom from & disenchantment with society in all it's forms & ways. Keener (Capote); Holbrook (The Majestic) Vaughn (Fred Clause) & Dierker all provide quality support with Holbrook in particular stirring the emotions in his scenes with Hirsch. Unfortunately Hurt & Harden are not given enough time to add meat to their characters or explain why their son became so disheartened with them.
Penn has managed to create a compelling; beautifully choreographed; honest & emotionally affecting movie which captures perfectly the untamed wildness and beauty of the not only the environment into which McCandless threw himself into but also of McCandless himself as a person. It taps into that innate & untamed wild streak & desire for freedom & adventure within the heart of man that rightly or wrongly he came to a premature end searching for. Flawed & foolish or beautiful & brave, you can't help but identify with and admire McCandless; his ideals and his commitment to seeing them through.

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