He Should Have Read "To Build A Fire!"

Rating: 3/10 (2 August 2010)

I really wanted to connect with this movie. The young hero who tries to find a "pure" way of living and dies tragically is actually one of my favorite archetypes. So is the rebel who breaks the rules.
The irony is that director and writer Sean Penn -- a real life bad boy if ever there was one -- really has no idea how to create a bad boy that audiences can like or respect or even understand. In COOL HAND Luke, one shot of Paul Newman sawing the heads off parking meters sets the tone for the whole film. Luke is a victim, but he doesn't act like one. He's cool, (hence the nickname) and he has a sense of humor, even if the world around him doesn't.
In this movie there are some great performances and beautiful scenery. But the hero never quite comes across as what Sean Penn wants him to be. He's going for a sort of Christlike spiritual wanderer, but what comes across is a petulant rich-kid punk. When young "Alexander Supertramp" (they don't make rebel nicknames like they used to) burns his money, he comes across as more clueless and spoiled than clever and rebellious. Same with not wearing socks to work. And breaking sensible public safety rules wherever he goes. And dying like a dog in the middle of nowhere. Over and over, Sean Penn keeps asking us to see something that just ain't there. This Messiah literally has no clothes.
And yet . . . I have to say that something about this movie moved me. It's important to show the world that there are privileged, educated young men who destroy themselves simply because money and privilege themselves are not enough. A college degree and good grades do not confer any real wisdom, any sense of purpose, or any real self-esteem. This movie gets that much right. Sean Penn makes a real point even while hammering home a false one.
On the other hand, it's terribly annoying the way the parents in this movie are such one-dimensional baddies. William Hurt and Marcia Gay Harden are totally wasted. Sean Penn is fifty or more years old, yet he still thinks like an angry teenager where parents are concerned. Really he should have just broken out Charlie Brown's old muted trumpet. (Waah waah waah -- wah wah!) and had the parents just be off-stage voices.
And I'm not even going to talk about using the incomparably gifted Jena Malone as a mere "narrator." When a gifted young actress has the most beautiful, soulful, intelligent and expressive eyes in the world, you want her ON screen, emoting, not off stage reading from file cards.
Now as an English major, I can't end this review without mentioning the insufferable literary name-dropping. Again and again we're told that our heroic dimwit is crazy for Jack London. But it's really obvious that he never read "To Build A Fire" or absorbed the message about what happens to careless, stupid people in the wild. Whether you vote this review helpful or not, please go read this terrifying classic tale. It makes an unforgettable point that this confused movie completely fails to grasp.