Emile Hirsch, Vince Vaughn, Dan Burch, Brian Dierker, Joe Duston, Hal Halbrook, William Hurt, Catherine Keener, Jena Malone, Kristen Stewart

Idealism is a plentiful commodity in your early 20s, especially if you happen to be a university student. Chris McCandless took his idealised view on life to the greatest extreme imaginable – and his story is told in Into the Wild.

With memories of his parents’ loveless marriage branded on his childhood, and repulsed by the materialism and regimented society he sees around him, Chris drops out of a plum position at Harvard University to try and discover the true essence of life. He literally destroys all traces of his old identity to become ‘Alexander Supertramp’, a kind of new-age hippie – leaving his parents and sister to fret for his well-being.

Chris’ search for meaning takes him from his hometown in West Virginia right across the United States and then finally up to Alaska. Along the way, he makes friendships and relationships, but ultimately rejects them all in the belief that Alaska and isolation hold the keys to his happiness. But will his ideology stand up to the harshest of practical tests?

It’s almost impossible to believe this is a true story. Into the Wild has a dreamy, mythical quality that, if it were fiction, would be dismissed as implausible. It’s this fairytale-come-to-life atmosphere that might keep you watching through its arse-numbing 140-minute run-time. McCandless met some fascinating characters in his travels and he affected them all in his own way … not always for the better.

Writer/director Sean Penn opted for a non-linear narrative and it is to the film’s detriment. Unless you subscribe to Chris’ devout anti-capitalistic philosophies, for the first third of the movie he comes across as a spoiled brat throwing the mother of all upper-middle-class tantrums. It’s only when the back-story covers his childhood that we begin to understand his motivations and can therefore identify with him as a person. Penn’s approach also necessitates sporadic narration and exposition, both of which could have been avoided with a traditional start-to-finish story. The director is to be commended, however, for choosing to shoot each scene on location – be it downtown Los Angeles or a remote area of Alaska.

The performances are almost beyond reproach – you forget you are watching actors, which is surely the highest compliment one can pay the cast in a film like this. The dialogue is smooth and easy, never jagging on the ear, and the cinematography showcases America’s harsh beauty (although Penn overuses close-ups).

Is Into the Wild too long? Were it not a biopic the answer would be yes (and might still be to those only after some Friday night entertainment). But the two hours and 20 minutes are used well in terms of effect. Rarely is nothing going on, and Chris can be seen as a man addicted to isolation and loneliness – shirking human contact is his drug of choice. To shorten his journey along this path might have been to cheapen it.

Into the Wild is a film that requires an investment of time and patience – a contribution modern film-goers are not often willing to make. But like a term deposit, it does pay reasonable dividends for those willing to see it through.

Some good extras on here, including a fascinating documentary on McCandless.

Rating :
Reviewer : Kris Ashton