Into the Wild
Review
by Anthony Morris
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In
western society
the urge to simplify your life by divesting yourself of worldly
possessions and roam the earth a free spirit is a powerful one, and
rarely has it been presented as strikingly as Into the Wild.
Working
from a true story, writer / director Sean Penn has turned the
wanderings of Christopher McCandless (Emile Hirsch) into a hymn to the
majesty of the open road.
After graduating college in the early
1990s, Christopher left his family, gave away his money, adopted the
name Alexander Supertramp (well may you chuckle) and roamed America for
close to two years, winding up living in an abandoned bus in the
Alaskan wilderness surviving on game and berries.
Penn's often
stunning visuals and fairly liberal use of Christ-like imagery presents
McCandless' journey as a series of healing encounters with damaged folk
as he progresses on his spiritual quest for enlightenment and harmony.
This can get a bit much at times: everyone he meets has some kind of
emotional problem that his wisdom manages to sort out. Thankfully
there's enough self-awareness here of what might be driving Christopher
(there's more than one hint that he's doing this in part to punish his
less-than-perfect but loving parents) to prevent the story from
disappearing up its own backside.
Christopher might be a
Christ-like figure to others, but he never really listens to anyone
else's advice, and eventually this turns out to be a pretty big flaw.
There's also plenty of down-to-earth humanity amongst the hippies and
lost souls he encounters, but even with a cast full of heavy hitters
(William Hurt, Marcia Gay Harden, Catherine Keener and Vince Vaughn),
it's Hirsch's utterly convincing performance that keeps the story
grounded.
Spirituality and the mundane don't often gel in film; here Penn
delivers the best of both worlds.
4 out
of 5
Into the
Wild
Australian release: 29th
November, 2007
Cast: Emile Hirsch, Vince Vaughn, Dan
Burch, Brian Dierker, Joe Duston
Director: Sean Penn
Website: Click
here.
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