By Steven Snyder
There was something profoundly naïve about Chris McCandless, an over-simplified way of thinking that made this twentysomething seem brave and foolhardy at the same time. Only weeks out of college, McCandless made the decision to remove himself from society. Donating his life savings to OXFAM, ditching his car and destroying not only his social security card, driver’s license and draft card but also setting the money in pocket ablaze, he went off the grid long before the days of cell phones or GPS. Venturing through the desert, kayaking down the Colorado River to the Gulf of California, and then marching back north, past the Mexico-America border and all the way up to Alaska, McCandless traversed the continent for years before hitching a ride to northern Alaska – to the very brink of civilization, and beyond.
Living more than 100 days on his own in the remote isolation of the Alaskan tundra, setting up a remote base camp in an abandoned bus, he was discovered dead in 1992 by buffalo hunters, mere weeks after he had passed away. His cause of death is still the point of speculation, but in the acclaimed book about McCandless written by Jon Krakaeur and published in 1996, he theorizes that McCandless was poisoned by the vegetation he was eating — the same roots that could be eaten by humans in the spring turned toxic in the autumn (he died in August).
The triumph of Sean Penn’s “Into the Wild” is that we are never allowed to forget McCandless’s naivety. The movie, Penn’s fifth in the role of director, deliberately avoids any slip into idol worship during its careful consideration of this conflicted character.
By hedging its bets, and leaving us unsure of just what the film thinks of this accidental hero, or his life-defining adventure, we are seduced by his contradictions and ambiguities. So many biopics oversimplify their subjects and answer far too many questions, turning every flaw into a momentary stumble, each character into a cardboard cutout. We do not so much walk a mile in their shoes as regard them from afar through the museum glass. But in “Into the Wild,” we sense the weight of this world — in the ways McCandless’ decisions not only affect those he meets along his journey but in the way they ultimately lead to his death. It’s a consideration, not a predetermined celebration.
If Penn — who adapted the story for the screen and then led a film crew along much of McCandless’ original path — had been only interested in this tale as a cerebral road trip, “Into the Wild” would not be the fascinating character study it is. Instead, he contrasts McCandless’ (played by Emile Hirsch) daily diary writings with the thoughts of his sister, who through a counter-narration expresses uncertainty and fear about her brother. Beyond the family, we see in the various people McCandless meets an instant affection for this young man strolling into their life as a beacon of what-could-be. But again, as each newcomer starts to grow close to McCandless, he seems unaware of their emotions, abandoning them callously, determined not to get attached as he ventures forward, mile after mile.
In some scenes, he seems naïve to the dangers he is flirting with; in others, McCandless seems ambivalent or unaware of the emotions he is stirring in others, from a lonely young girl to a lonely elderly man. Turning to the writings of Tolstoy, Thoreau and Jack London, his only mistress is the open road, his only purpose becoming the discovery of a true sense of self waiting to be unearthed beneath his sunburned surface.
Buoyed by a tour de force performance from Hirsch, he bestows McCandless with a range of emotion — and flaws — that make us care that much more deeply about his quest. Penn, meanwhile, helps us to see the world as this idealist sees it, a never-ending series of vistas, landscapes and spectacles — sights as big as the Grand Canyon and as small as a single leaf. McCandless feels as if they are waiting to be seen and enjoyed, that he is not a tourist but a spiritual being, eager to commune and to escape the constraints of this world.
Still, there are epic contradictions at work here — the way McCandless looks to commune while constantly pushing people away, the way he chases down the meaning of life only through activities that bring with them the constant risk of death. In many ways, the “wild” of the film’s title is not merely referring to the water, sand, dirt and snow, but to the innermost places of his psyche — the dark impulses, fears, desires and cravings pushing him ever forward. Was McCandless a naïve fool? Did he have a death wish? Have we, as an Internet-bound society, too aggressively silenced that slice of McCandless within us all? Here, as Chris nears the brink of self-fulfillment and inescapable doom, Penn infuses “Into the Wild” with a transcendent tone, a celebratory meditation on the ways in which we are all drawn to the extremes in life, a razor’s edge from which Chris McCandless was all too willing to fall.
