A venture 'Into the Wild' blue yonder

By Michael Sragow | Sun Movie Critic

October 5, 2007

(A) The pure ardor of first love is what 23-year-old Emory University graduate Christopher Johnson McCandless brings, not to a woman, but to the natural world in Into the Wild, the remarkable, energizing new movie from Jon Krakauer's book about McCandless' attempt to follow Emerson's advice and forge an original relationship with the universe. The movie sees his struggle in the round, as something foolish, stirring and funny - and also, ultimately, devastatingly sad.

What makes the film so satisfying is that, in the hands of Sean Penn (who both wrote and directed it), McCandless' ramblings through the American West and then north to Alaska become a genuine odyssey: a journey to self-knowledge. This boy-man who spends most of the movie foaming with enthusiasm about the joy of roaming around and savoring new experiences comes to realize "Happiness is only real when shared."

It used to be a hip putdown to call a film "a religious experience." Into the Wild just about is. The movie has its longueurs and excesses, but it also achieves the extraordinary with ecstatic epiphanies reached when the hero has driven himself to extremes.

Into the Wild unfolds in three different time frames that illuminate each other rather than muddy the narrative. In one strand of action, McCandless (Emile Hirsch) ditches his old self and adopts a new identity right after college as "Alexander Supertramp" - what contemporary vagabonds call a "leather tramp" because he treks on his shoes, apart from the occasional hitch or kayak or freight-car ride. In another, McCandless enters his dream destination, Alaska, finds his "Magic Bus" in the wilderness (the abandoned Fairbanks City Transit System vehicle that becomes his base), and tries to survive alone in the elements. He lasted for 112 days.

But in addition to cutting back and forth between these two story arcs, Penn shifts his perspective to McCandless' close sister, Carine (Jena Malone), who in voice-over fills in her brother's troubled history with their parents (William Hurt and Marcia Gay Harden) and charts how Chris' disappearance changes and softens them in a good way.

The movie hits on all three cylinders. Penn lets you see what Chris was running from and also enables you to savor his healthy and unpredictable new friendships. All the while you never stop rooting for him to fulfill rather than lose himself in nature.

The movie's images overflow with the vitality and venturesomeness that critics waxed nostalgic for last summer with the death of Laszlo Kovacs, the cinematographer of Easy Rider. This film's cinematographer, Eric Gautier, like Kovacs, is exquisitely alive to the shifting degrees of brightness and color in varying terrain. And Gautier and Penn are sure to frame their shots so that we know exactly what their hero is up to, whether Chris is exuberantly funneling grain out of a granary or meticulously preparing a fast-food burger (to earn some money). They've made a movie about American life on the lower edge of "the grid" (a homeless mission, a burger joint), or off the grid entirely (Southwestern communes), or in isolated spots like Carthage, S.D. Their sensitivity to diverse textures makes the movie visually captivating.

As Penn captures the deep inner rhythms of his actors, he populates the story with profoundly engaging figures of faith, hope and charity. Without labeling them as surrogate brothers or parents, he and his wildly talented ensemble create full-bodied characters who are heartbreaking because they demonstrate that Chris had the emotional accessibility and reach to heal his psychological wounds without stripping life down to absolute basics and facing himself in the unknown.

At the same time, the movie never reduces Chris' quest to a sort of spiritual, holistic self-medication. It honors the romance and the honesty behind his crusade for an unsullied life without accepting it on his own terms - as a rebellion against the total materialism and hypocrisy of the straight, workaday world. Penn even allows Chris a self-mocking moment or two, celebrating an apple he devours by the roadside as the best he's ever tasted, partly because it's "so organic."

Vince Vaughn disappears completely into the character of Wayne Westerberg, a combine and granary operator with some shady sidelines who takes Chris under his broad but tattered wings. Vaughn uses his fraternal empathy and good humor to convey how Westerberg registered as a life-affirming and even regenerative force for Chris.

Catherine Keener brings a simmering warmth to Jan Burres, the female half of a couple of "rubber tramps" (meaning they travel the highways in their van). She conjures a platonic chemistry with Chris that, refreshingly, defies categorization, and with Brian Dierker as her big, messy, braided beau, speaks in hippie tempos that keep even the heaviest discussions loose and sometimes uproarious.

Yet the movie wouldn't work without Hirsch's fervor as Chris. Thanks to Hirsch, you accept without question that a young man defined mostly by openness and intensity can persuade his new friends to respect his philosophic vision, even if they can't see the world through his eyes.

The movie's greatest triumph is its depiction of Chris' bond with an 82-year-old leather worker, Ron Franz (Hal Holbrook). Holbrook, who's 82 himself, matches Hirsch's urgency without showing a bead of sweat. Six decades of acting have brought Holbrook a peerless mastery of limpid thought and emotion. This actor who made his name as Mark Twain carves a character out of simple words and silences that may be his greatest creation yet.

Franz explains that after losing his wife and son in a car accident on New Year's Eve in 1957, he's lived alone and dedicated himself to crafting leather goods and selling them in a mail-order business he runs out of his garage. But now, with this young friend, his banked-up feelings pour out.

Hirsch and Holbrook choreograph a dance of innocence and experience in which support and wisdom go both ways. Their interplay crowns a movie that turns a brief, eccentric life into a robust work of art.

>>>Into the Wild (Paramount Vantage) Starring Emile Hirsch, Marcia Gay Harden, William Hurt, Jena Malone, Catherine Keener, Vince Vaughn, Hal Holbrook. Rated R. Time 153 minutes.