Sean Penn makes impact with Wild masterpiece

October 22, 2007 —

I'll admit I was a shade skeptical when I saw previews for Into the Wild, directed by Sean Penn, starring what appeared to be a Leonardo DiCaprio look-alike. Now, I'm glad that skepticism didn't sway me away from seeing this movie, because not only is it a triumph, it gets at the essence of being human in a way very few films have.

Emile Hersch, the aforementioned DiCaprio look-alike, stars as Christopher McCandless, who graduates from Emory University near the beginning of the film. He mentions attending Harvard Law School to his family, but instead, destroys all his identification, including social security card, and sets off on his own. The goal: Alaska.

The structure of the plot is a bit abnormal. The movie, based on a book by Jon Krakauer which is in turn based on the life of the real Christopher McCandless, begins with him already in Alaska, and flashes back to the different steps of his journey before he arrived there, all the while narrated by his sister, Billie (Marcia Gay Harden).

We learn that Christopher loves reading literature, particularly Tolstoy, London, and of course, Thoreau. These authors all appeal to his sense of the world - that it is necessary to leave everything behind, at least once, and experience the world truthfully.

His journey is a trying one. After being forced to abandon his car due to a flash flood, Christopher sets off on foot, hitchhiking from place to place. He's willing to delay rushing straight to Alaska, instead opting to stay with different people and in different places for varying lengths of time. This is fortunate for the audience, because it is in Christopher's interactions with others that his character becomes most clear.

I mentioned feeling like Emile Hersch was chosen for his similarity to DiCaprio, but this idea of mine faded as the film progressed. Hersch shines here in an excellent performance, and his dedication to the role becomes very clear later on in the movie, as Christopher finds food scarce in the wild.

The film itself, though, shines even more brightly than Hersch's performance. Sean Penn, who also wrote the screenplay, has produced a masterpiece. I would argue that Penn must have found something extraordinary in Christopher's story, something that affected him on a personal level, to create a movie such as this. Detachment from a project, it seems to me, is not sufficient to create a work of art of Into the Wild's caliber.

Christopher meets a variety of people from a variety of different generations on his journey. The movie became very emotional to me after it revealed the circumstances of Christopher's family life growing up, coupled with his relationships with people he meets. Some of them are almost like inverse orphans: a childless couple who obviously would love to have Christopher for a son, a senior whose wife and child are dead, longing for a grandson. The tragic nature of these characters is almost difficult to write of, which goes to show how effective of a film this is.

In addition to its insights into humanity on a personal level, Into the Wild also offers a real and beautiful view of North America. Shot entirely on location from the Midwest to Arizona, California, Nevada, even Mexico, before hitting Alaska. The movie offers a view of the most remote and the most urban of conditions, and the people that inhabit all of those places.

Into the Wild is an extraordinary, honest, and beautiful movie. It has been some time since a movie has affected me on the level that this one has, and, so far, it is the best movie I have seen in 2007. Decades from now, this is what Sean Penn will be remembered for.