Lots of heart

Rating: 7/10 (13 September 2007)

Into the wild is based on the true story of Christopher McCandless who after graduating college from a well to do family, donated his life savings to charity, left all his possessions, and without telling anyone set off with dreams of roughing it in the wilds of Alaska. After two years of criss-crossing through America and running into a host of interesting characters, he finally managed to hitch-hike to Alaska, where four months after his arrival his decomposing corpse was discovered by moose hunters. He had starved to death, apparently as a result of eating a poisonous variety of seed. It's a simple, but very compelling tale.
While director Sean Penn's treatment is full of heart, the movie is almost sunk early by sheer melodrama, especially in the voice overs given to Jena Malone who plays Carine McCandless, Christopher's sister. It almost seems as if at times Penn is trying to make a messianic figure out of the young McCandless, depicting him wiser than his years, healing the broken lives of those he comes across. It would have been better to just humanize McCandless and have the faith that by those standards he would measure well enough. Once the movie progresses past the family back-story, told in regrettable voice over, the movie picks up. The portrait of McCandless that emerges once he gets some more speaking time is actually quite detailed capturing everything from his bookish idealism and his obstinate wanderlust, to his love of beauty and pure joy in the experience of life. A lot of this has to do with the wonderful performance by Emile Hirsch, who gives just the type of performance that only an actor-director is able to get from their actors. Unfortunately, the movie runs far too long, because of some indulgent editing, and loses a lot of its force because of it.
While I have a lot of reservations about the film, one thing you can't take away from it is that Penn has managed to create an impassioned portrait of a fascinating young man.