“When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” This aphorism is intended to mean that when circumstances get harder, you have to rise to meet them, not run away from them. When you run away from your problems, they don’t go away. In fact, it usually creates more problems.
This is a truth which eludes Chris McCandless, the main character of Into the Wild, portrayed with skill by Emile Hirsch. Being a recent graduate of Emory University, he subsequently decides to donate his life-savings to charity, abandon his car out in Arizona, burn all the money in his wallet, burn his Social Security card, changes his name to Alexander Supertramp (I’m not kidding), and become a hobo. The language “hobo” is never used in the film (or the book it’s based on), but that’s what he is: a hobo. I shudder to think what he must have smelled like at the end of this movie.
Speaking of the movie, it was a simultaneously beautiful and frustrating experience. The main character is idealistic, childish, and ridiculously foolish. Ostensibly, Chris wanted to find God, or himself, or transcendence, or all of them in nature, to escape from the materialism of society, and seek the greater meaning of life. But really, he just wanted to get away from his family, meanwhile causing them a great amount of pain. He’s like a 7-year-old running away from home, only to Alaska instead of down the street. The hypocrisy of his motivations diminishes his actions.
Chris seems to be operating under one central idea: the misery of his life is caused by the people in it, so the solution would be to remove all people from his life. People = problems, so mathematically speaking, if the value of “people” is zero, then the value of “problems” must also be zero. But another truth which eludes him is that human connection means everything. All the beauty and transcendence of nature mean nothing if you don’t have another human to share it with. Now, this may seem like a no-brainer to you (it did to me), but Chris just doesn’t get it. He only realizes it at the very end of the movie, and his life, which only make the story more tragic.
To compound matters, Chris constantly meets people along the way that try to show him this truth, and are even living examples of this truth, examples that apply directly to him. The hippie couple who give him companionship; the young girl who lets him see a picture of what his life could be; the old man who shows him the meaning and effect of loneliness. They’re all trying to bring him out of his singularity to a place of glorious give-and-take, where he can truly love and be loved. But he squanders the opportunities they give him, and ultimately rejects their love.
Another reason this movie is frustrating is that the entire first half presents Chris’s journey of self-discovery as romantic, epic, and even exemplary. I have very little patience for people who think that the best way to solve society’s problems for themselves is to remove themselves from society. In Chris’s case, his no-going-back trek into nature wasn’t even born out of a genuine desire to find a higher state of being; he just wanted to get away from his dad. Towards the second half, the movie takes on a different tone, one in which the viewer realizes that nature isn’t all fun and games and kayaking without consequence to oneself. There are very real dangers to deal with, and you have to realize that you may have great reverence for nature, but nature doesn’t give two craps about you. Naïve people like Chris will eventually meet an end like his own.
There are some great performances in Into the Wild, including an Oscar nod-worthy turn by Hal Holbrook. The cinematography is simply breathtaking, and beautifully captures the grandeur and majesty of nature. Director Sean Penn has a gift for gentleness and an even hand. What he lacks is pace and a good film editor. I think the movie could have been about half an hour shorter or more, and is at times plodding. It also takes too many forays into the very stylistic, which I could have done without. It takes a long time to say what it has to say, and seems to be saying something completely different when it starts. I thought it had some great things to offer, but I ultimately thought the main character was too much of a naïve idiot for me to really enjoy it.
Iconic Lines:
“12 years? To paddle down a river?”
“What if I were smiling and running into your arms? Would you see then what I see now?”
“The freedom of simple beauty is too good to pass up.”
22 Rating: -3
Particle Man
5 comments:
Great review, PM. It sounds to me like you WANTED to like this more, but really couldn't given the logical stumbling inherent here.
i was wary of the premise (guy descends into nature to find himself), but also very hopeful because it was based on a true story. i had some misconceptions about the book, however, because i didn't take a very close look at it. i thought it was an autobiography, and therefor had a very truthful and sober outlook; one that got past the romance of nature and got to harsh and beautiful reality of it. truth is not only stranger than fiction, but oftentimes more beautiful, too. truth was in short supply in Into the Wild, though.
It reads to me like PM's problem with the movie is that he already exists where its thesis is designed to land. The main character's journey of discovering this idea seemed like just a bunch of stupidity that eventually led to an obvious truth, but for those who don't already hold that outlook (or hold it more tenuously) this might not be the case.
But I haven't seen the movie, so it might just be that it sucks.
I think I might want to see this one. I feel pulled on a regular basis to get away from everyday life and escape to nature, but not permanently. To me, I don't really see a point in that. Temporary displacement can be very eye-opening and can help a person to understand themselves, and even the world, better. Actually, while initially it might be selfish to run away from people and possessions, by doing this a person could eventually realize these truths that are so obvious to someone like PM.
To quote an older song, "Everybody needs a little time away...."
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