Another failed attempt at McCandless

Rating: 3/10 (17 February 2008)

Finally, after months of resistance, I have decided to watch Into The Wild. Please see my previous comments about my thoughts on the film before proceeding with this review of the film itself. Now, let me start by saying that already, just 20 or so minutes into this film, I have already come to the conclusion that the character of McCandless was not cast very closely to the person I see as McCandless when I think of this film. Emilie Hirsh is too young and too well groomed to be playing that part of McCandless, who most certainly had an air of hippiness to him in the book. Hirsch is not able to carry that as well because he doesn't look like he has been living the life of the vagabond at all. Penn does a good job or casting his parents and sister, who certainly have covered the wealthy parent's part quite exceptionally. These are the types of parents that almost anyone I know would certainly cause resistance. This perfect casting of the parents only makes Hirsch's character seem more off base. The film yearns to make a bigger deal out of the ever so tragic upbringing of McCandless than the book. According to the film, the love story of his parents was all a lie and his father was actually married to another woman when he and Chris' mother met. There was even another son following the birth of Chris by his former wife, all which leads to inevitable conclusion that this is what led this guy into this journey into the Alaskan bush. I suppose that is the central issue that I have always had with this story. In the book, Kraukuer used the McCandless story to chronicle his own personal story of man vs nature (of course he survives). The film makes the same mistake in attempting to insert a sub-narrative of the film, which is McCandless vs himself and his upbringing. We don't need to have this possibility spoon fed to us, but the film goes out of its way to explain that McCandless was a silver spoon with problems and these problems are what drives him on this pathway to discovery. This simply does not work for me. From my experience, man v nature occurs not so much because of our past, but more so because we resist what we might become if we do not take a moment of our lives and attempt to answer the questions of our own existence. I find now that I am older and past that confusing point in my life that it is essential to get off the grid for awhile and see what life is about other than what is programmed for us to do. In order to begin to understand consumption, you have to starve first. Too many people I know today have never really taken this journey. Instead, they look to sport of celebrity to fulfill that need we all have to be individuals or within a group. The story that Penn has crafted is a good one, if it weren't supposed to be based on someone else's life. The sad part of the movie is that this was someone's life and I think he would be morbidly offended at how he was presented in this film. At times this film is so simple it almost works, but then there are other moments where it so Hollywood that its reminiscent of a Calvin Klein commercial. Another thing that demands to be mentioned is McCandless' lack of communication to his family, specifically his sister, who seemed to not deserve this intentional disappearance. This coupled with the fact that he died about three miles from the main road, leads me to think about my original thoughts on the book: What makes this story worthy of such massive consumption? What is the moral of this story? McCandless always come off the same way, as a kid who was always given everything, which he rejected. Then, as he falls off the grid, he ends up dying from his own mistakes. Perhaps that is why this story is so consumable, because the person that lived it is not there to tell the story from his perspective. However, Penn's issues with telling the story are multiple. The flashbacks to a better time take away from the loneliness that McCandless must have felt from a couple of simple mistakes takes away from the moment that we should have to truly get close to the character. Factual errors when telling the life story of someone is simply unacceptable. Penn does this several times in order to keep consistency with the film. The last fifteen minutes of the film are boarder line farcical in their interpretation of the end. The way that Penn sets up the story, using flashbacks instead of real time, doesn't allow the viewer as close to the character as we should be with such an emotional plight. It would make more sense to tell the story in a chronological order, without all of the kitsch and more of the change as it happens in McCandless. It seems that the audience is supposed to automatically have feeling for this character, which I have a difficult time doing. . The repeated guitar riff from the introduction gets to be overbearing by the end of the film
In the end the sister says, "In the end it was Chris' story and it was Chris that had to be telling it." Unfortunately, we have to rely on the intervention of two very different variations of the reality, both of which fall very short In the end, McCandless imagines running into the arms of his parents, which I can only imagine was the last thing on his mind as he perished from his own miscalculations, in the wild. For more on this or to leave a comment, check out www.timhogg.blogspot.com