The call of the wilderness

Wild man: Emile Hirsch deserves an Oscar nomination for his portrayal of the obstinate Christopher McCandless
10 April 2012

The great Luis Buñuel used to say that you have to leave out sequences you like in the editing process for the benefit of the whole film. It is not a discipline that Sean Penn adheres to as a director.

His fourth film (after The Indian Runner, The Crossing Guard and The Pledge), based on Jon Krakauer's bestseller about Christopher McCandless, a 22-year-old who walked out of a privileged life and into the wild, stretches to two-and-a-half hours. Penn undoubtedly leaves in what other film-makers might have cut. The result, however, will hold most viewers; this is Penn's best directorial effort so far.

One of the reasons for his success is simple: Into the Wild is a good story, based on fact, of the sort that most young people will recognise as chiming, in some way at least, with what they have at some time felt. McCandless's journey to becoming a rebellious, 1990s Thoreau begins when, freshly graduated from college and offered a new car by his parents as a reward, he decides to leave his life behind and create a new one for himself.

He appears to have good reason since his parents require him to go down another road entirely. There is no one whose love and support he really trusts or who understands his need to stop being controlled and judged by his family and what he vaguely calls "society". So much so, in fact, that he becomes convinced that you don't need relationships to experience life to the full but only an appreciation of the natural world we live in and so often ignore.

Accordingly, he sheds his worldly goods, donating his savings to charity and burning the rest of his money before setting out from the South Dakota wheatfields down the Colorado River to the non-conformist refuge of Slab City and beyond, finally heading into the wilds of Alaska. It's a dangerous journey, especially during the winter where, among the snow and ice, he finds an old bus which serves as a temporary home.

He has a rifle so he can shoot for his food, and a book about edible wild plants as a back-up. On his way he meets a posse of characters on the edge of the society he has escaped from.

What Penn gives us is a road movie that neither paints McCandless as some kind of pure and heroic idealist nor condemns his naivety and his mistaken belief that he needs no one else. Of course, we are more on his side than not, since Penn secures a performance from Emile Hirsch that ought to attract an Oscar nomination (but probably won't because this is not a Hollywood film). Hirsch, in a difficult and certainly testing role, shows us both a foolish, confused and obstinate boy and a determined and brave young adventurer.

Added to that, Penn and Eric Gauthier, his cinematographer (who shot Walter Salles's The Motorcycle Diaries), paint the great American outback starkly enough to suggest its dangers as well as its beauty. When you add to that the songs of Eddie Vedder and the music of Kaki King, you know that Penn is a deeply romantic soul. But he is also too shrewd a film-maker not to understand the risks that the real-life McCandless was taking with himself and the agonies he was causing for those who loved him better than he knew.

The film, also scripted by Penn, is undeniably episodic but it's easy enough to go with the flow. All the acting, without advertising itself, stays steadily true to the thrust of the story. William Hurt and Marcia Gay Harden are excellent as McCandless's parents as is Jena Malone as his sister; Hal Holbrook is particularly touching as the old man who wants to adopt McCandless and perhaps teach him that to be alone is not the answer.

Into the Wild is no ordinary film and light years ahead of the kind of entertainment that Hollywood tries to push Penn into as an actor. It has its faults - and there are things that Penn might have cut out - but it is still one of the best American films of the year, even if you do feel more impatient with McCandless than Penn seems to.

Into The Wild
Cert: 15

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