Into the Wild (2007)

Director: Sean Penn

Starring: Emile Hirsch, William Hurt, Catherine Keener

After graduating from Emory University, top student and athlete Christopher McCandless abandons his possessions, gives his entire $24,000 savings account to charity and hitchhikes to Alaska to live in the wilderness. Along the way, Christopher encounters a series of characters that shape his life.

Sean Penn did a good job bringing the film to life. However, I have so many issues with this film.

The cinematography is beautiful, helped off course by the stunning landscapes. The dialogue is very poetic, and the performances were good. The extreme close-up photography, though, was a bit nauseating at times.

The film can easily be seen as a celebration of life (albeit a bit extreme!), and to explore and experience the beauty of nature. Nowadays we tend to forget nature actually exists. As for Chris, he did some nonsensical things along the way. Often, he came across as extremely ungrateful, and even selfish. His argument for not needing (any) money was absurd.

There were moments I felt the film was stagnating, and I wanted to push it along. 148 minutes is just way too long for a film like this to sit through, especially also since it is slow moving, and the non-linear narration. So, although it is a very well made film, – and there probably are a few lessons to be learnt here – it simply wasn’t entertaining enough.

Based on fact, I’m wondering whether I should actually feel sorry for real-life Chris McCandless, on who’s adventures the film is based. He brought what happened to him upon himself. Pure self-indulgence! He didn’t think his adventure through properly and didn’t plan ahead, and certainly didn’t do enough research – typical spoiled brat! Having given his ENTIRE savings to charity tells me he was never planning on returning, and that this was probably a suicide mission.

After more than two hours and an ending I somehow predicted, I was really glad when it ended.

‘Into the Wild’ received two Oscar nominations (Best Supporting Actor, Best Editing), and received another 127 nominations, winning 23. (Probably because it was an American film telling an American story…)

Would I watch it again? No.