The wild country is getting harder to find which makes people want it even more. Especially with multibillion dollar cooperate mergers and plastic puppets of Hollywood taking up space; Christopher McCandless had his heart bent on escaping the wealth-crazed civilization.
McCandless’ story in the film Into the Wild sinks into your heart as if someone yanked it down to your stomach. This movie is an instant classic.
Director Sean Penn’s (All the Kings Men) adaptation of Jon Krakauer book of the same title holds true to the spirit of the true story and person that McCandless was without patronizing or demeaning what he did.
McCandless (Emile Hirsch, Lords of Dogtown) after graduating college he decides to trek north to Alaska. He burns his money and identification, ruins his car, hitches across this country to the Stampede Trail – near the base of Mt. McKinley – eventually paying for it. On the way he meets Wayne Westerberg (Vince Vaughn, Swingers), who hires Chris to work on his grain mill. Runs into Ron (Emmy Award winner Hal Holbrook, famous for playing Mark Twain on stage), who takes him in like his own son.
In the two years of being alone has another reason for splitting from civilization; escaping being boxed in at home. His father, Walt McCandless (Academy Award winner William Hurt, Kiss of the Spiderwoman) is a former NASA employee and his mother is Billie (Academy Award winner Marcie Gay Harden, Pollock) a second marriage to Walt becomes the reason for Chris’ distaste for both parents. This reasoning is told through the narration from Chris’ sister Carine (Jena Malone, Conact).
Emile Hirsch is incredible at showing what Chris experienced in his two years as a leathertramp, one who goes by foot. Coupled with beautiful cinematography and the upbeat yet melancholic score by Grammy Award winner, Eddie Vedder (from the band Pearl Jam), the movie really lets you in to Chris’ mind, body and soul.
Why do people do what Chris did, we may never answer. But, he touched the hearts to the people he met and moved them to change their ways to an extent and will continue to influence them. He was only 22 when he started the journey, how old are you?
“I now walk in to the wild,” Chris said in last letter to Wayne. And this movie keeps him in the wild fifteen years after he found bus 142 at the end of the Stampede Trail.