JagBytes

Issue date: 10/14/07 Section: Entertainment

Media Credit: Chuck Zlotnick courtesy of allmoviephotos.com. Kristen Stewart plays Tracy and Emile Hirsch stars as Christopher McCandless in Sean Penn's "Into the Wild."

In years past, Salinger and Kerouac spoke to generations with their stories about the need for an identity. With "Into the Wild," director Sean Penn moves the story depicting the lack of a sense of direction from the backyard of Benjamin Braddock in "The Graduate" to the sweeping landscapes of all things Americana. Not just a simple epic on-the-road drama, "Into the Wild" is a focused look at one's need to find a purpose in a mixed up world.

Christopher McCandless (Emile Hirsch) is a recent college grad who embarks on the search immediately following his commencement ceremony from Emory. The well-off son of parents (William Hurt and Marcia Gay Harden) with perpetually high standards, Christopher rejects his parents offer of a new car and instead gives away his life savings to charity in an effort to move into the wild. He gives himself the moniker Alexander Supertramp and functions completely at the mercy of the wilderness.

As McCandless, Hirsch brings a determined sense of naivety to the role. Carrying the full weight of the film on his shoulders, he never falters in his depiction of McCandless as the rebellious young adult who finds more consolation in the writings of Tolstoy, London and Thoreau, than the pressures imposed upon him by society.

In an apparently shocking moment near the beginning of the film, McCandless burns what's left of his money, much to the snickering incredulity of the screening audience I was with.

But what seems like an act of rebellion is actually a sincere effort to locate the core of humanity in its most primitive essence. Director Penn shows his maturity as a filmmaker by carefully portraying McCandless' journey as a method of self-realization rather than what would initially seem like a spoiled boy going against his overbearing parents.

The non-linear chaptered storytelling traces McCandless' foray as a method of birth. Titled after certain stages of life, the chapters follow McCandless throughout his trials and tribulations on the road.

He meets the hippie couple played by Catherine Keener and Brian Dierker who encouraged the philosophy of "all you need is love;" Vince Vaughn in what is essentially an extended cameo as the Midwest farmer Wayne; Kristen Stewart as the love-struck teenager; and Hal Holbrook as the heartbroken elderly man who so desperately wants to save McCandless as much as he wants to save himself. The old man nearly steals the show with his performance of gravity as his attempt to find meaning at such an old age brings along a sense of sorrow with it.

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