Into the Wild (2007)
Average Rating: 7.5/10
Reviews Counted: 191
Fresh: 157 | Rotten: 34
With his sturdy cast and confident direction, Sean Penn has turned a complex work of non-fiction like Into the Wild into an accessible and poignant character study.
Average Rating: 7/10
Critic Reviews: 45
Fresh: 32 | Rotten: 13
With his sturdy cast and confident direction, Sean Penn has turned a complex work of non-fiction like Into the Wild into an accessible and poignant character study.
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Average Rating: 4.2/5
User Ratings: 138,069
My Rating
Movie Info
Into the Wild is writer/director Sean Penn's adaptation of the popular book by Jon Krakauer, a nonfiction account of the post-collegiate wanderings of a young Virginia man, who divorces himself from his friends, family, and possessions in search of a greater spiritual knowledge and communion with nature. Upon his 1990 graduation from Emory University in Atlanta, Christopher McCandless (Emile Hirsch) walks away from a loving if dysfunctional family and sends his nearly 25,000-dollar life savings
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Cast
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Emile Hirsch
Christopher McCandless -
Marcia Gay Harden
Billie McCandless -
William Hurt
Walt McCandless -
Jena Malone
Carine McCandless -
Catherine Keener
Jan Burres -
Brian Dierker
Rainey -
Vince Vaughn
Wayne Westerberger -
Zach Galifianakis
Kevin -
Kristen Stewart
Tracy -
Hal Holbrook
Ron Franz -
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Into the Wild Trailer & Photos
All Critics (193) | Top Critics (46) | Fresh (164) | Rotten (35) | DVD (29)
As [Hirsch] struggles with the elements, his increasing frailty and the cinematography's increasing grandeur mesh in a way that's at once iconic and wrenching.
Top CriticThe photography is of the sort you'd find in any half decent nature documentary, with cloying emphasis placed firmly (and sometimes clumsily) on the idea that our neglectful, selfish and not to mention rampantly capitalist ways are destroying the planet.
Hirsch, who carries the film on his increasingly emaciated shoulders, performs heroically, but there's an edge missing.
The movie tries its hardest to celebrate the impetuousness of its hero and the exhilaration of his accomplishments. Mostly, though, it just reminds you of the severity of his mistakes.
Without diminishing the deep transcendentalist yearnings of its young hero, Into the Wild builds to a climax of profound human connectedness, profound human pain.
Into the Wild takes your heart and shakes it, offering inspiration, exasperation and blunt realization in a true story of one young man's dream and nightmare.
Every once in awhile, a movie will come outta nowhere and blow your socks off.
Crafting his meditation on the men who answer the call of the wild, Sean Penn's adaptation is heavy on mood and ambiance but sadly lacking in depth, giving up on the wider comparisons to focus fully on McCandless, who may not be up to the scrutiny.
It's a bit heavy-handed, but ultimately a rewarding watch.
Even in its harrowing final moments, it reaches a spiritually transcendent pinnacle - the idea of ending one long, strange trip and plummeting into an even-greater unknown with both fear and elation. A stirring American drama of comfort and conflict.
Even Penn's more indulgent flourishes seem to enhance the film's keen feeling.
Penn's film displays a deep and abiding love for America, set against a critique of the uglier aspects that exist alongside all that the beauty.
The kind of insipid hero-worship that traps the subject in wax
Thank goodness for Eric Gautier’s miracle of cinematography that floods the screen with spectacular moments of pristine beauty and long shots ...
A long trip, but worth the wait. Paul Chambers, CNN.
Although it's been hailed by many, I found Sean Penn's film to be the tale of a megalomaniac as told by a narcissist.
I would never do what Christopher McCandless did, and yet I found Into the Wild to be incredibly inspiring.
Into The Wild has been made into a prayer of a motion picture by Sean Penn. It may not touch everybody, but those whom it does touch, it will touch deeply. It is a haunting odyssey.
Penn has managed an impressive achievement that qualifies as a great American film. [Blu-ray]
...one of the best-possible high-def disc transfers I've seen in quite a while. (Blu-ray Edition)
...it's not the character of McCandless...but the supporting cast and characters who bring the story to life.
About the only good thing this movie can offer is some nice scenery, which I don't need to watch a movie over two-hours long to see.
Audience Reviews for Into the Wild
Secondly, please watch the film. Rarely have I seen anything so earnest, so uncynical. It is not a film that simply sits back a watches it subject, but is totally part of it, enhanced by its ideas. Beautiful, intelligent, heartbreaking. A great film.
Super Reviewer
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- Ron Franz: I'm going to miss you when you go.
- Christopher McCandless: I will miss you too, but you are wrong if you think that the joy of life comes principally from the joy of human relationships. God's place is all around us, it is in everything and in anything we can experience. People just need to change the way they look at things.
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- Christopher McCandless: If we admit that human life can be ruled by reason, then all possibility of life is destroyed.
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- Christopher McCandless: Some people feel like they don't deserve love. They walk away quietly into empty spaces, trying to close the gaps of the past.
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- Christopher McCandless: When you want something in life, you just gotta reach out and grab it.
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- Christopher McCandless: What if I were smiling and running into your arms? Would you see then what I see now?
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- Christopher McCandless: When you want something in life, you just gotta reach out and grab it.
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Latest News on Into the Wild
August 22, 2012:
Josh Brolin Could Go Crazy for the StormHe's in talks for Sean Penn's next directorial effort.
March 27, 2008:
Jay Cassidy on Into the Wild: The RT InterviewJay Cassidy, editor of critically acclaimed film, Into the Wild, talks to RT about his long term...
March 3, 2008:
RT on DVD: Into the Wild, Things We Lost In The Fire, My Kid Could Paint That ArriveInto the Wild, Sean Penn's lyrical adventure about a young idealist on a cross-country trek, leads...
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Foreign Titles
- Into The Wild (DE)
- Into The Wild (UK)
As such, despite inclusions of talented cast members like Hal Holbrook and the steady direction of Sean Penn, I couldn't help but feel a little frustrated by the immaturity of the story and the main character. Emile Hirsch plays Christopher McCandless like the boy (not man) probably was in real life - confused, selfish, and stubborn. These are teenage traits to be sure, traits that end up dangerously if they aren't grown out of, demonstrated perfectly by the film. Yet the script seems to suppose we should idolize McCandless for his childish ignorance. He did so much wrong, but I suppose because this is a true story, the writers of the book and film decided that they would treat him with the utmost respect and not question his obviously foolish course of action. But a movie like "127 Hours" shows that a movie that calls the victim out in order to warn the audience of repeating such misguided acts can be rich, effective, and yet respectful to the subject in question.
Instead, "Into The Wild" wastes its hugely unnecessary two and a half hour run time praising McCandless, and when it isn't doing that, its likely prancing around goofy characters that range from talented (Catherine Keener) to eye-roll worthy (Kristen Stewart, who bites her lower lip immediately upon entering the scene). And all of these episodes usually end with McCandless not learning anything from them, and usually leaving them without saying goodbye, without doing anything that remotely helps them or teaches anyone anything. Here we see a microcosm for whiny teenage immaturity (dare I also say pretentiousness), which masquerades as some sort of righteous cynicism. The kind of thought processes that clearly, if you watch the movie until the end, should not be replicated or encouraged.
So what, then, is the purpose of "Into The Wild" if we're asked to cheer on a childish fool the entire time? I certainly believe the film has a purpose, and deserves to exist, but I'm inclined to say the love people have for this movie is highly indicative of a generation of social media-induced self-indulgence and self-righteousness. In other words, "Into The Wild" serves the same kind of purpose "Project X" serves - to shine a light on what is largely wrong with how today's youth thinks - though admittedly "Into The Wild" at least attempts to maintain a sense of classiness, even if it is ultimately a facade.