DVD Review - Into the Wild

Starring:  Emile Hirsch, Vince Vaughn, Catherine Keener, Marcia Gay Harden, William Hurt, Hal Holbrook
Director:  Sean Penn
Studio:  Paramount Pictures

My husband claims that every man has a dream of leaving everything behind and taking to the road. Maybe it’s a primal thing, man against nature…or in my husband’s case another chance to meet people. My father often talked about the same sense of wanderlust, though he actually took off after he graduated high school, and he and a friend went to Montana and Mexico and back again. His experiences on his trip have made for a lifetime of stories and friends.

Into the Wild is one man’s journey through this same desire. Christopher McCandless was a top student, and after his graduation from Emory College, he tells his parents that he can get into Harvard Law School. Then after they leave, he begins to erase himself - he burns all his identification and begins to call himself Alexander Supertramp. He tells no one in his family his plans and simply leaves. His goal is to spend two years tramping, ending with the ultimate test of himself in the Alaska wilderness.

Alexander meets a variety of people in his travels, and as you meet them and understand his relationship with them and with his family, you begin to see why he is running so desperately and where healing will lie. The movie is divided into parts 1. Childhood 2. Adolescence 3. Manhood 4. Family and 5. The Getting of Wisdom. Each part shows some of his growth as a person. But through it all he remains dedicated to his goal of the wild. In the last part he meets another man who has spent his life in solitude as Chris was preparing himself for, and both men learn from the other. The thesis of the movie is in this section, and while I would love to explain it because I found it very true (much more so than I thought Sean Penn the writer and director was capable of), I won’t ruin the movie for you.

Who should watch this movie? Anyone who enjoys quiet and introspective movies, this is not the movie for someone who is only fond of big budget blockbusters. The movie is beautiful and Emile Hirsch’s dedication to the role is obvious and impressive. It’s the kind of a movie that will force you to talk about those crazy dreams we all have - the ones that got postponed by life, and it makes you face those dreams as realities that may have had serious consequences. The reason this movie is rated R is language and two scenes including nudity, though neither are sexual in nature (both of those you could skip with little loss in plot).

Purchase Into the Wild.

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