Rewind, Review, and Re-Rate: ‘Into the Wild’: It’s Not Man or Nature, but Man and Nature

A lesson learned too late by an indulged young man who goes off track

R  | 2h 28min | Drama, Adventure | 2007

“Into the Wild” (2007) is one of the most moving cinematic critiques of selfish individualism and haughty naturalism, when practiced at the expense of humanism. Its camera turns outward to magnify the beauty of the natural world, and then inward to salute the equally beautiful world within us. It makes us reflect and realize how tragic it is to find beauty in only one of these worlds.

The film is adapted from the 1996 nonfiction book by Jon Krakauer, loosely based on the travelogue of nomad Christopher McCandless (Emile Hirsch), who, while in his early 20s, trekked alone across America into the Alaskan wilderness.

Fed up with fulfilling his squabbling parents’ dreams, he heads off to fulfill his own, leaving behind his bruised parents (William Hurt and Marcia Gay Harden) and baffled sister, Carine (Jena Malone). Carine is narrator for much of the film; Chris narrates the rest.

Chris passes breathtaking American scenery and wildlife. He takes odd jobs but otherwise lives off the wild, hops on freight trains and trucks, hitches rides on freeways, and even kayaks down a stretch of rapids. Station wagons of hippies and hipsters seem more like “home” to him than his own. Roadies and tramps like Jan (Catherine Keener) and Rainey (Brian H. Dierker) seem more like “family” to him than his own.

Emile Hirsch as Chris McCandless takes odd jobs but otherwise lives off the wild, hops on freight trains and trucks, hitches rides on freeways, and even kayaks down a stretch of rapids in "Into the Wild." (Paramount Vantage)

With Roger Miller’s bewitching “King of the Road” playing in the background, it’s hard to resist Chris’s schmaltz for the road. Ironically, his discovery about himself and life hits him when he runs out of road.

Addicted to What’s New

Chris insists with deafening certainty that “the core of man’s spirit comes from new experiences.” Turns out, he isn’t after life or its fullness; he’s after “experience,” the newer, the more, and more “radical,” the better. Those who hire Chris pay well for his work, yet Chris moves on because things were, as he says, it was “more exciting when I was penniless,” and because the “freedom and simple beauty is just too good to pass up.”

Carine speaks of Chris’s “characteristic immoderation.” She’s right. He’s no different from a junkie, except that wanderlust is his drug. The scenery of his childhood and adolescence can’t give him a high any longer; nothing short of the Alaskan tundra will do.

She adds that Chris measures himself and others by a rigorous moral code. She’s wrong. Chris measures others more rigorously than himself. He detests people being mean to each other, but he is unaware that he’s cruel to his family by upping and leaving after a lifetime under their protection, however flawed that family may be.

In his self-righteous rejection of materialism (cash, car, career), Chris forgets that, at every step, he’s exploiting someone else’s material, whether it’s his backpack, sleeping bag, reading glasses, knife, rifle, the bus he hides in, or the pen-pad he uses for his meticulous diary entries. None of these are “natural.” They reek of humanity, each crafted by a tradition of learning, skill, patience, and excellence, and all made in factories or sheds by thousands of hardworking folk.

Chris replaces one form of materialism with another and calls it naturalism. It’s the idea of rejecting that hypnotizes him, not rejection itself. He’s like a sulking child with the  bedroom door shut, imagining that he’s cutting himself off from family, only to sneak out an hour later just in time for dinner. He thinks nothing of taking free rides, meals, or a bed in shelters meant for the destitute and not for rich graduates like himself.

But Chris discovers to his shock that solitude isn’t our natural state. We might use it to spur the occasional burst of creativity, of introspection, or quiet healing, but we’re not meant to be alone. We’re meant to give and receive, to love and be loved, to sacrifice, to forgive. And we can do none of these things alone in the woods. That Chris talks to himself is a clue to this truth, but he doesn’t catch on soon enough.

No, Chris isn’t some beer-swigging hermit on a Harley. He’s every young man and woman who feels alienated (and selfish) enough to euthanize their most vital relationships that are screaming for air.

Emile Hirsch as Chris McCandless continues his trek because things were “more exciting when I was penniless,” and because the “freedom and simple beauty is just too good to pass up,” in "Into the Wild." (Paramount Vantage)

Chris’s tragic tale of misanthropy is vital viewing for an age that’s sold a new brand of “my, me, mine” each week, and a new “othering” every weekend. It reminds climate change activists why they’re agitating: It’s not to protect nature, but also mankind alongside nature. It reminds human rights activists why they’re protesting: It’s not to protect rights, but also humanity alongside rights. Man and Nature aren’t meant to contradict but to complement each other. Man is part of Nature—a different part, but a critical part nonetheless.

Fine Filmmaking, Fine Cast

Screenwriter-producer-director Sean Penn, cinematographer Eric Gautier, and editor Jay Cassidy excel in close-ups of eyes, lips, and hands. Through sheer precision and timing, they uncover a mood, a fear, a suspicion, a longing, or a regret. The soundtrack is a commentary on misconceived “activist” notions that anything outside of the exhilarating footage on “National Geographic” is lifeless, pointless.

The cast is superb. Hirsch’s eyes and smile convey tenderness and virtue. When a 16-year-old girl, Tracy (Kristen Stewart), swayed by a “free life” of caravanning, tries to seduce him, Chris is the one warning that she’s too young.

Hal Holbrook as artisan Ron Franz, as well as Keener, and Dierker play compassionate sounding boards. And Malone’s voice aches with the agony of a sister who’s losing her brother afresh each day, not of a sister who’s lost her brother just once in a lifetime.

Hal Holbrook (L) as Ron Franz and Emile Hirsch as Christopher McCandless share a moment in "Into the Wild." (Paramount Vantage)

Brimming with wisdom that comes as one ages, the lonely artisan Franz hints at Chris’s seething resentment against his parents and counsels him: “When you forgive, you love. And when you love, God’s light shines on you.”

Chris says he’s struggling for intimacy with Jan; he tells Rainey that some people feel they don’t deserve love, and stray into empty spaces, trying to close gaps to the past. It’s a remarkable moment for Chris to turn his insight on himself. But he lets it pass, teaching the other very little, learning even less.

As his family is forced to come to terms with what they lost, Chris is forced to come to terms with what he finds. The lesson he learns at the end is one of the most powerful captured on film because of all that’s come before it.

Figuratively, that dawning of wisdom indicts not his seeking (always a good thing in a young person), but his lack of humility, his presumptuousness, and his cultivated victimhood.

Tellingly, the film opens with Lord Byron’s seductive verse that Chris seems to have taken to heart: “I love not man the less, but Nature more.” Rarely has a young man appeared more misguided in both the difficult choice and the ultimate preference.

Christopher McCandless, played by Emile Hirsch, passes breathtaking American scenery and wildlife. He takes odd jobs but otherwise lives off the wild. (Paramount Vantage)

‘Into the Wild’ Director: Sean Penn Starring: Emile Hirsch, William Hurt, Marcia Gay Harden, Jena Malone, Hal Holbrook MPAA Rating: R Running Time: 2 hours, 28 minutes Release Date: Sept. 21, 2007 Rated: 5 stars out of 5