Into the Wild (2007)

Actor Sean Penn has written and directed a superb film version of John Krakauer’s award-winning nonfiction book "Into the Wild" -– one of my favorite reads -- the true story of Christopher McCandless. If you know the book, you know the movie. If you don’t know the book, get a copy. Read it. Then see the film. Now that we have that settled, Chris was a college graduate who in the early 1990s, ditched his job prospects, family and any career prospects to head West, way west to Alaska, to live off the land as if he were a Jack London hero. It killed him.

Played by the superb Emile Hirsch, McCandless is idealistic, full of the brimstone fire one gets in their post-college years (and quickly ditches when the rent is due and Waffle House sounds mmm-mmm good after a night of drinking). Sorry. I digress. Chris despises materialism, capitalism and the "hypocrisy" of his well-to-do parents. He gives away his savings, killing his chances of law school, burns his money and destroys his identification in the form of driver’s license and credit cards. He, or so he thinks, "frees" himself in the process. A hiker finds his body inside an old bus.

I loved the book’s soulful genius. Krakauer lost a child and knew the parents’ pain. He wrote about it. Penn’s movie digs deep into the worry and pain of the parents (William Hurt and Marcia Gay Harden) and sister (Jena Malone) felt after Chris left, but never treats them as saints. The parents are humans with wrongs, as does any other person. That Chris was too young to see that his parents could never be perfect, nor could he. Shit happens. It is one of the tragedies that Penn focuses on.

The cast is both superb and … less so. A heart-breaking Hal Halbrook plays an elderly "perfect" father figure that Chris never felt he had. Hirsch is unforgettable. I never cared for him before, but here he shines. His acting of Chris' slow, painful demise is as cruel here as in the searing book, something I couldn’t imagine while reading the book back in 1996. The heart of the book and film is McCandless’ relationship with the Holbrook character, especially for anyone who saw their grandfather more as a father figure than their own father. Holbrook walks away with the film. Other actors don’t fare so well. Vince Vaughn plays a farmer, but he’s nothing more than Vince Vaughn sucking up the scenery.

Beautiful camera work, inspired casting of locals and a respect for people who are religious, gypsies, flakes and loners, all drive the film. It celebrates individualism, but marks against being alone and committed to one’s own self. Eddie Vedder contributes to the way-cool soundtrack. A-