Poignant

Rating: 8/10 (26 January 2011)

Into the Wild is a film based on a true story that sees a young graduate named Chris ditch the conventional and materialist life in favour of a life outside the grid alone in the wild away from his parents and his previous way of life hoping to make it to Alaska, his own promised land. In spite of this being a true story I was wary of the run time of around 2 hours 15 minutes and thought it may struggle in the pacing department. I have seen films with plots far less convoluted struggle to fill a shorter run time so with perhaps a form of prejudice going in beforehand I sat down and it was brilliant. The film does not waste any time as we see Chris living this life out in the wild right from the outset. Of course there is some exposition about his past life and again knowing that this is a true story it in my mind warranted a decent delivery. Was it a decent delivery? Well it was and it wasn't, early stages indicated promise from the storyline but it wasn't the main strength, the first act then shows promise but in my mind gets a little stale.
That said there were significant improvements later on. When we see him travelling and facing the challenges that being alone and off limits gives you Emile Hirsch does stupendously and while yes there large parts of the film with dialogue such as the interaction he has with various people he meets which was beautifully scripted as well as shot especially the scenes with the hippie couple. The scenes with him alone show great ability and in my personal opinion show Hirsch's ability to play the role. Looking at through his eyes was one of the most interesting things about this film seeing really how he thinks. Taking these into account it is hard not to see why choosing this life wouldn't be a little bit appealing and this to someone who very much enjoys his conventional lifestyle. Without going into spoiler territory the film gets more poignant as it goes on, which was helped by (I am going to reiterate this) beautifully shot which fully signified why this man would want live this life. That may have ended up being one of the real difficulties with this film as it could have easily ended up being pretentious gladly it wasn't. The interactions almost matched his individual performance and it was incredible that all the actors did such a great job. My personal favourite was Vince Vaughn's performance where he was utilised and used fairly sparingly. To summarise this film does brilliantly to make the most of one man's main performance while bringing other actors in and knowing how to use them properly. I would strongly recommend it as one of the most compelling and poignant of recent years.