The Fantasy of Just Giving it all Up....

Rating: 10/10 (24 December 2008)

This is an excellent film, full of natural beauty and wonderful characterizations. But most of all, it is a film with a dual nature, at once extolling the idea of just walking away from your life and giving it all up, while showing the cost of doing so. Cost, not in monetary terms, because that is not the currency in which this film trades. But cost in terms of human sacrifice and the effect it has on others. In a way, this film is an affirmation of the effect we have on others, and how we touch them in ways large and small.
So young Mr. McCandless, a brilliant and educated student, one day decides to abandon his bright future in some big office building and instead decides to experience the world at its most basic level. His decision might have had something to do with the sustained repression it takes to succeed as he did in school. After spending your entire life depriving yourself to succeed at school, with no break, the urge to break free and do something - anything - different can become overpowering. And haven't we all had that fantasy, to just drop everything and hit the road? Well, maybe not everyone, but I think a lot of people do. And this is an only slightly fictionalized tale of his doing that.
I think the film is a fair portrait, at least of the main character. It is full of the kind of incidents that a traveler might experience. The people he meets ring true - there really are nice people out there, who live at various levels of freedom from the usual rules of society. The do look for people like themselves to spend time with. There are hippies spending their lives driving from nowhere to nowhere, grizzled old veterans licking ancient wounds, prosperous outlaws who rebel in their own way. We who have submitted to "normal life" don't see them, except in passing, such as the office worker who gives McCandless the time while passing him on the street. But they are there.
The film shows that there are different kinds of rebellion, different gradations of submission to the social order. "Alex Supertramp," as he takes to calling himself, chooses his own level, which is not sustainable in the long run but certainly enables him to experience raw survival. Which he was deprived of in his comfortable suburban former life.
It is easy to find fault with the choices that "Alex" makes. He could have just taken the Summer off, or a year. For instance, it's common in Australia/New Zealand for students to do that, to take a couple of years after school and just roam through Europe with backpacks. He certainly is naive about a lot of things. But to have the courage to do what he did, give everything up just to live free, is inspiring. Well, it inspired me, anyway. Not to give everything up like he did, but to appreciate that we do all have choices about how we want to live, and we make them every day.
I understand where he was coming from. He did see things others won't. His flame burned bright, just short. A few different choices, a little more submission, and he could have pulled his adventure off indefinitely. But the fact that he didn't submit even in small ways (wearing socks at menial jobs, for instance), and that he didn't even try, shows that he really was engaged in a sort of prolonged suicide, defiance of modern life and of what others wanted. This film brought to mind Kirk Douglas' classic "Lonely are the Brave." There are hints that "Alex" was simply too sensitive for this world, with rather prosaic scenes of family strife from his childhood that he apparently never got over.
"Alex" had issues. All of his quotations from famous writers can't hide that. He dealt with his issues by running away, by returning to nature and going primitive. Not the best way to cope, for sure. But he sure lived out the fantasy. And who is to say that living a fantasy for a short time is worse than living a long conventional life? Well, each of us. But his answer just happened to be different than almost everyone else's.
I liked Hal Holbrook's character, and many others in the film - seeing an 82-year-old man run and climb mountains is special. The interaction between people of different generations on something of an equal level was wonderful. Vince Vaughn was a standout - his character's advice to "Alex" at the moment of their parting shows that his character, too, cherished the fantasy. And he might have traded places at that moment - but probably not. He, too, had made his choices, and his weren't Alex's.
Enjoy the fantasy. Watch the film. Then go back to your house or apartment, wake up tomorrow and take a shower, eat breakfast and go to work or school. And maybe appreciate once in a while that it is possible to break out of that mold, if only we, too, want to give up all our possessions and mental/emotional baggage and pay the price.