Into the Wild

Rating: 8/10 (21 August 2015)

Haunting portrait of a young man trying to find peace and solace after leaving a home that had anything but it. Alaska, its wild frontier, is what Chris McCandless (Emile Hirsch) believes is the answer to his emptiness and desire for a life that has adventure for him. Sean Penn, as director, opts to go back and forth, showing us parts of the man's life prior to his death, at too young an age, due to a poisoned plant life plucked from the very nature he thought would be his salvation, while holing up in an abandoned bus (or the skeleton of what was once a bus; now just a shell that allows him to have a refuge of some sort).
We see his parents argue volatilely (William Hurt and Marcia Gay Harden), while he tries to shield his sister (Jena Malone) from its effects. Once he graduates college and his first real job goes bust, Chris decides to take to the open road, meeting the likes of hippies (Catherine Keener and Brian H Dieker) living within a commune, a teenage girl (a malnourished- looking Kristen Stewart), a company owner (Vince Vaughn) who gets in trouble with the law, and an elderly, genteel, Army veteran widower (who lost his wife and child to a traffic accident caused by a drunk driver) who works in leather as a trade for extra money (living off a decent pension). The lives of those he encounters are touched by his warm spirit and good heart, and the true tragedy of the film is the realization that he could have built a good life with strong relationships had he chosen to. Instead, he'll die alone, sickly, starving, and without a chance to say goodbye to the family that didn't know his whereabouts or plans. Malone gets some narration to dictate to the viewer the disappointment in not getting to communicate more with her brother when he was gone from home, pondering about what might have been. The storytelling structure Penn applies takes us to different points of McCandless alone and with people, as we see the mistake of not accepting what was right in front of him: a chance for a real family. Hal Holbrook got a much deserved Oscar nomination for his performance as a lonely old man awaken from his isolated life by this spirited young man who had a date with destiny. The expansive travelogue of the character gives Penn a chance to use locations across the map visually and aesthetically. Like any good road movie, the country of the United States offers much in the way of storytelling. Hirsch is a revelation in the lead; all that vulnerability and yearning for something of substance and sustenance in life drives him away from the potential of true happiness into a dying despair he cannot correct. Truly a poignant and depressing conclusion but what a story Penn has to tell. Good use of music by Vedder and company to factor into the various dramatic highs and lows of McCandless' life before his death.