There are films you want to see because you expect to like them. And there are films you see because you expect to hate them, and you want to be vindicated in your hatred. And there are films you see because you want to hate them, and you end up liking them, and it’s really really annoying. I’ve seen a lot of these lately. First Gone Baby Gone. Then (deep breath) The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford. And now this.
Before I come across too effusive, let me just say that if they made punch bags with Emile Hirsch’s face on them, I’d buy one. He always comes across as such a selfish, smug asshole. However, in this film, his character actually is a self-absorbed, smug asshole, so maybe it’s perfect casting. Based on a true story, Into The Wild tells the tale of Christopher McCandless (Hirsch), who took off after graduating from college and promptly became a bum. Over the next two years he meandered around the US growing his facial hair and hanging out with various kindly people, before heading to Alaska. Where he starved to death.
In all that time, he never once contacted his family. And yes it’s true: neither mom nor dad was exactly likely to win Parent Of The Year. But on The Hierarchy of Shitty Folks, they weren’t anywhere near the bottom either. His search for ultimate truth doesn’t seem so much a journey of enlightenment as a very prolonged exercise in parental torture. But the film works because director Sean Penn doesn’t overly romanticize McCandless’ mission. We’re allowed to see the torment he puts his parents through. (They’re not made into martyrs either. In a series of flashbacks, we also get to see the violence that lead McCandless to run off in the first place.) No one gets off easy. It’s this ambiguity that gives the film its strength. Although McCandless claims to loathe the trappings of materialism, he is clearly the product of a privileged background (how many community college graduates do you know who go around quoting Pasternak and Thoreau?). He claims to be on a quest, but more often seems to be running away from something than to it. He says he hates his parents, but as one character points out: “You look like a loved kid. Be fair.” His romantic Rousseauan belief that a return to nature can solve his problems are ultimately his undoing when he eats a poison herb which paralyzes his digestive system and leads to his death. Oh the irony!
Maybe it’s not a great film. But with its gorgeous photography, touching performances (Marcia Gay Harden and William Hurt as the parents) and terrific cast of secondary characters (Catherine Keener and Hal Holbrook – who got an Oscar nomination for this) it’s a pretty good one, which pisses me off. Instead of films I love to hate, the world seems to be filled with films I hate to love.
