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Into the Wild (2007)

Director: Sean Penn

Time Out rating

Average user rating

29 reviews

Movie review

From Time Out London

Talk about heart-on-your-sleeve cinema. Sean Penn uses cinema as an alternative to the analyst’s couch in this adaptation of Jon Krakauer’s book, which details the fatal journey of Christopher McCandless, a 22-year-old graduate from a comfortable Virginian background who, in 1990, gave his $24,000 savings to Oxfam, hit the road and wandered through California, Arizona and South Dakota before hitchhiking to Alaska, where he ate the wrong berries and died in a rusty old schoolbus in which he’d been camping between hunting moose, dodging bears and reading too much Jack London.

Penn shows an abnormal amount of sympathy for McCandless (Emile Hirsch) – think, in British terms, a literate public-schoolboy with a sneering towards the conventional; he even says, ‘I think careers are a twentieth-century invention’ – and his McCandless is a Messianic figure who pounds the open road, leaving behind nothing but goodwill whether he encounters troubled hippies (Catherine Keener and Brian Dierker), hormonal teenagers (Kristen Stewart) or ‘lonely’ – McCandless’ own poisonous word, not mine – old men such as the one played very sweetly by Hal Holbrook. The story of McCandless is obviously fascinating, but Penn is so uncritical that he leaves us little room to judge for ourselves whether his subject – or, more fittingly, his muse? – is enlightened, arrogant or both.

Everything else is deftly handled: Eric Gautier’s photography is beautiful, the pace is swift, Hirsch gives a terrific performance and Penn’s script moves back and forth neatly between the past and the present, cleverly using the bridge of a voiceover from McCandless’ sister (Jena Malone) to sketch a troubled family background. More than anything, the film reminds me of a time when, aged 17, I set off for the Forest of Dean to camp out in the wild, inspired somehow by the recent death of Dennis Potter. We arrived at night, pitched camp and woke in the morning to find we were sleeping next to a busy dog-walking path. One man’s wilderness is another man’s backyard. If only Penn had kept that more in mind.

Author: Dave Calhoun

Time Out London Issue 1942: November 7-13 2007

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User reviews of this film

Sophie Jimenez said...

Posted on Jan 01 2010 16:24 A fascinating journey into someone elses extraordinary life. Thought-provoking notions, but at such a cost of a young persons life. A life-enhancing film, making me assess my own life and it's materialistic trappings. I thought the film was beautifully shot and very touching.

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Instigator said...

Posted on Dec 22 2009 00:06 This book and movie of this true story awakend something deep within. It is a shared consciousness of very few but those few are dreamers. I think Chris would have made a great author if he would have survived.

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Frenk said...

Posted on Jun 10 2009 07:28 The character Chris is (as Chris the person was) a pretentious try-hard. But the character Chris gets some sympathy for his high ideals, even if they are the ideals of a rich wanker.
But the film works well. I was surprised how quickly it went, and it keeps things interesting and involving all the way through.
Say what you will about Chris, and you should. But the movie, qua movie, is a success.

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James said...

Posted on May 02 2009 00:44 Sean Penn, although a great actor, clearly should never direct again. I did not even finish watching this movie, that is how dreadful and long this movie was. The major problem with this movie is I could not sympathise with the lead character let alone like him. It is just a simple case of 'the overly spoilt brat rebelling against his priveledges' story which has been told many a times. When he says to Vince Vaugh 'theres so much bad stuff in the world' you literally give up on the movie ever redeeming itself. The world is so bad, you judge other peopel for being bad and yet all he does is run away 'into the wild' to sulk 4 2 years rather than helping those in need? What an arrogant, unlikeable fool. The actors performances are all decent, but the storyline, main character and directing is awfful. Atrocious movie!

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Iant said...

Posted on Mar 15 2009 10:48 A pity that Chris did not heed the real experience of life of those he met along the way. At 23 he has the intelligence and enough cumulative literary insights to accept that the experience of others is also valid. Even like-minded but now chastened older hippies now feel the anguish of his parents sufficiently to advise him to communicate with them. His final chance of reconciliation goes when the old man tells him that 'Forgiveness is love', indirectly urging him to accept that everyone, including McCandless' parents, are victims of their circumstances and can and should be forgiven. By ignoring this significant word of wisdom from an old-timer he condemns his parents and his innocent sister to a lifetime of guilt and anguish, and by his own reckless naivety and ignorance of the wild he brings tragedy and despair to others through needless self-destruction. He's a nice lad but too self-obsessed.
It's the usual well-trodden path of youthful idealism taken to an unusual extreme but most people eventually come to accept that they cannot abstract themselves from the world they're born into.

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Adam said...

Posted on Nov 20 2008 19:21 I have no idea how some of you are judging the film by the way the main character has been portrayed, so what if he was an idiot for disrespecting his family, thats who he was, and the way they went about getting it across to the viewer was fantastic, the whole idea is they dont want you to love him and think the world shines out of his backside, hence why he was going on about how shit society is but then goes to work in burger king!

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Henry Darcy said...

Posted on Jun 09 2008 13:50 It's interesting to read some of the negative reactions to this film and in general how the word "indulgent" gets attached to anything that challenges materialistic modernity. To me, Penn goes to considerable lengths to balance his character's idealism against the cost of his individualism. The narrator is not McCandless, but his grieving sister, who reminds us again and again of the pain that his family experienced. Furthermore, the final outcome of the journey emphasises the realisation by Chris that he made a mistake in rejecting society outright and he pays the ultimate price for that. This is a film, which like "Grizzly Man", deals with the relationship between man and society and the decision to escape back to nature. Whereas "Grizzly Man" stands back and observes it's subject with a detached distance, "Into the Wild" empathises with it's character and tries to show us the lure of the foolhardy adventure as well as it's tragic consequences. How is that more indulgent than any of the stories that we see about individuals seeking fortune along more wordly paths?

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amdazako said...

Posted on Apr 29 2008 08:41 "Worst tragedy of my life" - killing the moose. The guy was definitely full of himself, and Penn "forgot" to deal with that. But then, he was just a troubled kid, and he did something different. McCandless, not Penn.

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DD said...

Posted on Apr 23 2008 16:18 He did not belong to nature, to the land.
He died because he did not belong there. It was all so meaningless.
Most importantly, he had some joy leaving things behind, buth he had no joy being there. I do!!!

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Ben said...

Posted on Apr 23 2008 01:51 I think your opinion on this film depends on what you bring to it... there are some reviews here from people who obviously were never going to let any of the deeper ideas get within an inch of them. And others, like me, who simply sat back and opened their mind. You could get arsey and prickly about the character's choices and motives but I think his plan was to escape from arsey and prickly people.... I can't fault him for that. A sad but thoughtful story, an unusual and worthwhile film.

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Rachel said...

Posted on Apr 20 2008 00:37 What a load of self-indulgent rubbish. I detested how Penn portrayed Chris in the film- this saint like un materialistic God. When in fact all I saw was a selfish, nasty little boy who put his parents through absolute hell. It was the glorifying of what he did that was so ridiculous. I mean fine, give up material possessions, that's all well and good but acting like it's the rest of the world and not you that has a problem was just idiotic and something that I believe everybody (if they're being honest) cannot relate to. Hirsch was beyond irritating with his self satisfied smile and jesus-like beard. The whole film was a disaster- not funny, not sweet, not insightful or even original. It was an absolute bloody disaster.

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Ti said...

Posted on Mar 05 2008 20:07 Visually stunning. But the film is banal and self-indulgent.
It looks like a mixture of music video+national geography+discovery.
To my relief, Christ finally wrote down"happiness real only when shared". I guess that is how Sean Penn tried to make up for his previous over sympathy towards Christ.
However, it came too late.

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CD said...

Posted on Feb 29 2008 22:41 First of all UI and Olek know nothing about who they are. if you're a parent and you love your kid, even though he goes to college and gets that degree and does something else doesn't mean it should be a waste of money. if you think that you're a bad parent! he didn't die because of starvation, he died because he ate the wrong berries and the river was too high to cross. this movie was vantastic. it is about finding out who you really are as a person and looking with in, and on the way making an impact in everyone elses lives that you meet up with. the character in this movie is brilliant and smart, he graduated from college with straight a's and knew so many knowlegable quotes and how to connect with people. so before you leave some really bad comment, watch the whole movie and actually look at the symbolism rather than the nudity and scenery UI and olek

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Russell said...

Posted on Jan 08 2008 00:57 A very sympathetic portrayal of a defiant, adventurous spirited young man. The film generates a feeling of admiration for the courage of the main protagonist, Christopher McCandles , alias, Alexander Supertramp, while allowing his muddle-headed determination to live alone and cut-off from "society" in a demanding environment, to speak for itself. At times during the screening I wondered about the relevance of the film to a 58 year old like me, but director, Sean Penn skilfully depicts the anguish of McCandless' parents in a way that makes it very relevant to a father of sons in their 20’s (which I am). By including even more of the perspective of McCandless' sister, Penn has produced a film of considerable appeal across gender and generational lines.

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peter said...

Posted on Dec 11 2007 18:04 Masterpiece.

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