Table for Five

Into the Wild-A truly tragic story, but an incredible film

When I first came across the book “Into the Wild” by Jon Krakauer at the library, I flipped through it, but at the time, a true story of a young man who followed a dream until it led to his death was not the kind of reading I was looking for. So my viewing of the movie of the same name, made from the story told in the book, was untainted by any knowledge of the story beyond the basics.

Following the book very closely, the movie version of “Into the Wild” tells the story of how,in 1990, a young man named Christopher McCandless (played by Emile Hirsch) graduated from Emory University in Atlanta, and rather than accept his parents’ offer to buy him a car and help him pay for grad school, he instead withdraw his entire savings, donated the majority of it to OXFAM (with a note instructing them to feed people with the money), and set off on what he imagined would be a grand adventure ending with him going to Alaska.

After abandoning his car and burning the rest of his money, McCandless proceeded to hitchhike, take jobs, and rely on the kindness of strangers as he made his way West. Along the way, he changed his name to “Alexander Supertramp” (he spent time jumping into empty train cars and riding the rails, known as tramping), worked as a grain harvester, and lived in “Slab City”, a free RV park in the desert of Southeast California. He carries books by Thoreau and Jack London, believing that man truly needs nothing but his own determination and something to believe in.

Director Sean Penn spent close to ten years getting this movie made, and he treats the subject matter with delicate respect and yet at the same time, holds nothing back. We see McCandless’ parents (William Hurt and Marcia Gay Harden) fighting and obviously unhappy, we hear parts of the story narrated by his sister Carine (Jena Malone) including the letters he wrote to her, apparently unaware that there was a massive search underway for him, and we see him do things that most people would never dare attempt. It is because he kept a journal that we even know that McCandless actually rode a kayak through the Grand Canyon to get to Mexico, that he climbed rocks with no ropes, and that near the end, he faced a brown bear. Emile Hirsch did his OWN STUNTS for all of those scenes.

Penn chose some of the best actors in American film to help tell this story, including Catherine Keener as Jan, a free-spirited woman who, along with her boyfriend Rainey, picks up McCandless hitchhiking. She mentions Slab City to him and then when he shows up there, takes him in and tries to encourage him to at least contact his parents. Vince Vaughn gives a strong performance as Wayne Westerberg, the owner of the grain harvesting company who gives McCandless a job and becomes a close friend. I was also impressed by Hal Holbrook as “Franz” (his name is a pseudonym), the elderly man who tries to understand what McCandless is doing, but also tries to stop him from going to Alaska.

As we watch McCandless go on this journey, the viewer begins to feel hopeful, like maybe he really does know what he is doing, and can go to Alaska with nothing but rice, a gun, some ammo, and a native guide to wild plants. When he gets to Alaska and miraculously finds an abandoned VW bus with a stove and a bed in it (not a spoiler, the bus is on the cover of the book)-we start to think holy cow, this guy is actually going to do it, he’s going to live alone in the absolute middle of nowhere.

Unfortunately, it does not turn out that way. The end of the movie is heartwrenching and difficult to watch, and very sad. Not having had read the book, I did know that McCandless did not survive in Alaska, but I had no idea how he died, and it was shocking and upsetting to me. As a Mother, it hurt me to think of what his parents must have gone through when they were notified.

This is not an easy movie to watch, there’s no doubt about that. But despite the difficult subject matter, this movie is practically a study in the art of acting, of cinematography, of how to direct a movie. For the soundtrack, Penn asked Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder to perform and release solo recordings, his first ever. The song “Hard Sun” also features Corin Tucker of Sleater-Kinney. The movie comes as a single disc with no bonus features, and a two-disc edition with two documentaries on the making of the film. You all know how much I love bonus features, and these two documentaries did not disappoint. I say they make the purchase justifiable. It is also available on HD-DVD for you diehard HD lovers-if I hadn’t received a review copy, I would have likely purchased HD.

Buy it, rent it, but see it, for the acting, for the filmmaking, and for the story itself, a story of a young man who had a dream.

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