Dull, weightless and dreadfully earnest

Rating: 5/10 (21 December 2007)

The tragic story of Christopher McCandless is given the ultra-worthy treatment by Sean Penn in this ultimately dull and weightless film that tells a potentially very good story very badly.
The problems with the film are numerous. First off, there is no notion of quest as Penn decides to start the film off with the beginning of the end in Alaska, thus removing any potential suspense in McCandless' quest. Then, the film goes along at a glacial pace with very few events of interest to speak of. As it crawls on, the inter-cutting between the main story and the Alaska finale destroys the narrative and ultimately the story. This wouldn't matter if there were a point to the film.
This proves to be elusive. Half of the film seems to be saying that nature's stunning and brilliant. Excellent, but I knew that before and why are you taking two hours and a half to tell me this. The rest of it is focused on the character of McCandless, who is here portrayed as being ludicrously idealistic, to the point of annoyance. He appears to be on a quest to discover truth and honesty and yet he has as his hero a "great man" who is arrested by the FBI under serious criminal charges. The character's nature and story provides no empathy, pathos or message. There is a notion of identity that develops but it is heavily embedded in a lot of other material that makes the notion difficult to access. It isn't properly dealt with anyway.
There are a few positives in this film. The soundtrack is nice to listen to, and it did a lot to escape the tedium of the rest of the film. There are a couple of excellent performances. Catherine Keener is the standout, whilst Emile Hirsch is impressive, though not a revelation, in the main role. There are also a couple of nice sequences, especially the one at the slabs, and the natural surroundings look stunning.
The film is ultimately let down by its helmsman, Penn, who writes not so much a script as a collage, and directs the film in a manner that shows a lot of observation though little understanding of the nature of film-making (e.g. styles of shooting and editing are used neither to create effect or meaning but just for the sake of using them). It is also amateurish in places. He has McCandless, in a scene where he is talking to an apple, break the fourth wall for no reason. All that does is alert the audience to the presence of the camera. And, of course, being Penn he can't help but bring a large sociological undertone to the whole proceedings. It is a shame because the majority of people would agree with his politics but he ends up making such a song and dance about them that it feels like he's lecturing you. The prime example of this is the completely inexplicable insertion of a shot of George Bush Snr. announcing the first war on Iraq, which has no bearing on the plot.
I hate to say it, but Penn has all the potential of becoming the Michael Moore of narrative cinema - a man who can make good points very badly and great stories very annoying. "Into the Wild" is awfully earnest, directed badly to within an inch of its life and commits the worst crime in cinema by being dull. Unless you like that sort of thing, stay away from this.