The Hawk

Issue date: 10/3/07 Section: Entertainment

Emile Hirsch captures Chris McCandless' free spirit perfectly.

The infamous story of Chris McCandless, who, in 1992, gave away all his money to charity, abandoned his poorly functioning family, and went to live off the land, which finally culminated in a tragic Alaskan adventure, has been adapted from the Jon Krakauer bestseller to an epic movie directed by Sean Penn.

Starring Emile Hirsch, "Into the Wild" is a satisfying retelling of the story that leaves people inspired by the main character's ideals, agitated by his cockiness, and mournful of his outcome. McCandless wanted to find himself and leave our materialistic society behind. Reading transcendentalist literature like the works Thoreau had taught him that happiness could be reached in the romantic seclusion of the wild. He took these visions to heart and lived out the stories of writers like Jack London.

Running close to three hours, the film never gets dull, and keeps the viewer on edge trying to splice back together the separate time frames that the movie is divided into. You never get bored watching Hirsch alone in Alaska, mainly because the film conveniently flashes back to other parts of his journey. When he does finally get to the end and there is no more to tell of his travels, Hirsch's performance is too compelling to bore viewers. Losing 40 pounds for the movie's final heartbreaking scenes, Hirsch's fatigued appearance makes the viewer forget his cheerful personality, and leaves him to gaze upon a hopeless and devastated soul.

Penn takes the liberty of changing much of Krakauer's sequence around and even adds in his own chapter titles, which appear on the bottom of the screen based on the phases of McCandless's odyssey. Penn also removes Krakauer's narrative, which appeared in the novel so that he could compare McCandless's experience to some of his own expeditions. Two of Krakauer's main objectives in writing the story were to prove that he could prove that Chris McCandless wasn't a nut job for his ideals and to expose the myriad similarities between their reasons for going out into the wilderness. He makes it work in the book, but this parallel narrative was prudently left offscreen.

A fine supporting cast including Vince Vaughn helps Hirsch tremendously. McCandless met many people along the way whether they were people who let him hitch a ride or kind people who temporarily hired him for work. Penn took some liberty in fabricating a few characters on the journey, but they seemed relatively believable. Incredible camera work captures the vast landscapes of America's Southwest and Alaska. From helicopters and ground crews come astonishing shots that truly show the beauty of nature. Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder worked on the soundtrack and his finger-picked acoustic songs go hand in hand with the exceptional cinematography. It shows the concern that Sean Penn has for this story in his poignant film.

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