Sean Penn's passion project

Rating: 8/10 (15 May 2011)

Based on a book by Jon Krakauer Into the Wild was passion project for Sean Penn, waiting 10 years to make it ensure he had the approval of Christopher McCandless' family before he could make it.
Christopher McCandless (Emile Hirsch) is a recent university graduate who decides to reject society and materialism and goes travelling across America. He gives all his money to Oxfam and renames himself Alexander Supertramp and on the way he meets a variety of characters, including a couple of hippies, Jan and Rainey (Catherine Keener and Brian H. Dierker), a harvester, Wayne (Vince Vaughn), a young singer Tracy (Kristen Stewart) and a old man Ron (Hal Holbrook). He ends up in the winter landscape of Alaska, attempting to live off the land. At home he left no way for his parents (William Hurt and Marcia Gay Harden) and his sister Carine (Jena Malone).
Into the Wild is a slow burner of a film, taking its time to show Chris/Alex's travels and the way it looked and felt reminded me of Danny Boyle, particularly The Beach and 127 Hours. There is great cinematography by Eric Gautier and sombre music. Sean Penn does have a good eye for imagine and scenes like when Chris/Alex was in Los Angles looking like when Richard was in the Ko Pha Ngan. The film itself lack a strong narrative structure but that is because of the story itself, Chris/Alex is wondering around Western America as he develops his skills and makes friends.
Chris/Alex is portrayed as a very intelligent young man, an avid reader and has a strong, if a little too rigid moral view of the world. But is also portrayed as an arrogant man, who is selfish and because of his view that he does not need human connections he does not realise how much he hurts the people who love and care for him. One of the main reasons he ran away was because his parents used to argue and nearly had a divorce: everyone's parents argue get over it! In the Wikipedia article they say his parents were unloving, but when we saw them they did seem to care about their son and want to see him do well, offering to buy him a car and match his college fund to go to Harvard Law. Also if he really believed against materialism, the modern world and the curse of modern society, why not go to somewhere like a rural African village and helping the people have a better live.
Asking wise I personally doubt Hirsch's abilities and I personally thought he was trying to be like Leonardo Di Caprio (ironically I found out on the trivia page that Penn originally envisioned Di Caprio for the role). Hirsch is good in the silence moments and will Penn's direction shows that a simple image or images can be more powerful then using lots of dialogue and it takes great skill for an actor to make it compelling. But Hirsch speaks in a monotone and he comes off as a pretentious rich boy. He is best when he is in Alaska. Malone also provided narration and both her and Hirsch lay it on thick with what they say but lack emotion. The rest of the cast are good throughout, Hurt, Harden, Holbrook (wealthy of his Oscar nod), Keener, Vaughn and even Stewart who is natural (but it could also be I liked her in her Daisy Dukes). There is a very strong cast in this film.
Overall Into the Wild is a good film and certainly made with a lot of passion. But it is not the classic piece of work some critics think it.
A Solid 4 out of 5.