A Film Review of Into the Wild
I'm gonna say it. Sean Penn is a dick. I mean just look at him. The guys got a white man afro, a constant smirk, and an unrelenting "holier and more important" than thou art attitude due to a few phony, self-publicized "crusades" in New Orleans during the hurricane.
Aside from his laid-back stoner role of Spicoli in the 1982 sex romp "Fast Times At Ridgemont High," I'm not even a big fan of his much-lauded acting style.
So, needless to say going into a 2 hour and 40 minute epic about a boy who wanders the countryside and is a direct result of this man's directorial vision, I was not too expectant of a film like the one I got.
Due to the director's outspoken view on politics, I believed I was going to be in for a pretentious film with little content and too-many pedantic fau-insights. What I got…whether I liked it or not, was something else entirely.
The film, based on the non-fiction book by Jon Krakauer, tells the true story of a young man in the early 1990's who is recently out of college, and who has decided to burn his money, abandon his car, and leave his family to walk the earth and travel the country in search of enlightenment.
His travels first take him rafting down to the Gulf of Mexico, and he meets many people along the way, (including a girl that falls in love with him, an old hippie couple, and a pair of stoned nudists). Ultimately however, he is determined to leave them all behind and make his way to the icy domain of Alaska and the promise of a solitary, almost holy life out in God's cold country.
When he arrives there, he finds "the magic (abandoned) bus" (which, in the absence of other human characters takes on an almost human feeling). This is where he will learn, after the fact, that he has digested a poisonous root and will soon starve to death.
The overwhelming sense I took away from the film was one of heartbreaking irony. The truth that he was so in search of throughout his journey is finally discovered tragically too late and in the face of a terrifying isolation…what he discovers after years of searching (in his words) is that "happiness is only real when shared."
The haunting image of Alexander "supertramp" dying on the magic bus will forever be burned into my mind.
The landscape photography is so beautiful that the terrain seems to become a character in it of itself. The haunting atmosphere throughout the film alludes to a nature that is alive and dangerous. The wild animals help remind supertramp at how small he really is in the face of the world, and ultimately how much he has lost by choosing to abandon people. The acting by the lead, eclipsing anything that the director could have done, is astounding and should be considered for an Oscar.
Who would have thought, with "Into the Wild" Spicoli has made a masterpiece film; A film that I now consider not only one of my favorites of the year, but one of my favorites of all time.
**** (out of 4)