Poor Little Rich Boy: Examining "Into the Wild"

John and I just finished watching the movie "Into the Wild", a Sean Penn-directed filming of Jon Krakauer's book. It is the true story of 24-year-old Christopher McCandless, an upper middle class white kid just graduated from college, who embarks upon a journey of discovery that takes him to the remote Alaskan wilderness.

Before I go any further, let me make two quick disclaimers. The first is that the aim of this post is not to bash the real McCandless. I am fully aware that movie characters based upon real people are not carbon copies of the actual people who lived it. My goal here is to examine the themes brought to the fore by the character of Christopher McCandless as he is presented in the film. I didn't know the real Chris, so my criticisms are not of him but of the screen version of him. The real guy may have been worlds different than his big screen doppelganger, and I respect that. Secondly, this post will contain spoilers. If you haven't seen the movie, or read the book, and plan to, then stop reading right now. In order to get my point across, it's imperative that I open my big fat mouth.

When we first meet the character of Chris, he is graduating with honors from Emory University. He has a trust fund with $24,000 remaining in it. For reasons unknown to us, and presumably to him as well, since it's never really investigated, he gives this entire booty to charity. This is, of course, commendable, and I certainly don't want to minimize or downplay the charity involved in handing over such a sum to a truly worthy cause. But what's puzzling is the lack of reason behind such a huge gesture. I mean, more than once in the course of this movie, Chris is literally handed money, and he rebuffs it each time. The only logic behind it that I can deduce is childish and arrogant. He views it like this: "My parents have money, and they're dysfunctional, therefore money = bad." Most people, myself included, would've killed for the opportunities this kid had. But, being a spoiled little rich white boy, he refused money and opportunity in the name of "finding himself."

This is where Chris's journey gets really infuriating. He pores over Thoreau and Jack London in cliche I-will-live-in-the-woods-in-order-to-find-myself fashion, and figures the only thing to do with his life is head off on some half-baked odyssey of emotional and spiritual fulfillment. In the process, he meets a random group of pretty fascinating characters while managing to devastate his parents back at home (they have no idea where he is; he's fallen off the face of the earth for all they know). On his adventure, there are endless chances to learn the fine arts of compassion and forgiveness, but the selfish kid just doesn't see them. He's too busy remembering what awful parents he had and what a painful background he comes from. He remains fixed on this idea that living in remote Alaska will magically open a door to his true nature and happiness, though he's so caught up in resentment and self-centeredness that he wouldn't have known his true nature or happiness if they were staring him in the eye. What Chris does is meant to come across as noble and courageous. I just find it insulting and immature.

Also, it bears mentioning that, for an intelligent young man who graduated with honors, Chris is pretty damn stupid. He goes into the wild without even a compass or a working knowledge of how to live off the land. He's so romanticized Jack London that he's lost all common sense. It's not surprising that McCandless dies of starvation five months into his big journey. He's been handed everything in life, and when he's faced with the knowledge that he might have to do something for himself, he simply can't. Even when that something is as key as survival. In the barrens of the Arctic, there ain't no mommy and daddy or eccentric, kind-hearted strangers to bail your ass out. So instead of taking care of himself, he dies.

McCandless spends the entire film lamenting his awful upbringing and his awful parents, all the while spouting Hallmark sentiments about happiness and truth. What he fails miserably in realizing is that compassion, for oneself and others, is essential to finding some semblance of happiness. And forgiveness is a direct product of compassion. Not able to forgive his parents, inflicting pain on them with every passing day by not even attempting to contact (or even acknowledge) them, his assertion that "Happiness is only real when shared" just doesn't ring true. How the hell would he know? He's too selfish to share anything.

Although I found the central character frustrating beyond belief and was wholly incapable of empathizing with him in the least, "Into the Wild" is not a bad movie. The photography is beautiful. I think Sean Penn, who also wrote the screenplay, intended to present this very questionable view of the hero in order to challenge us. Emile Hirsch, as McCandless, does a fine job with the one-dimensional character he's given. But it is Hal Holbrook, as one of the people he meets along the way, who walks away with the film. His performance is luminous, gentle, and intensely powerful in its quiet force. Holbrook's character is also the only one in the movie who tries to impart some real wisdom to Chris. But, of course, it's all for naught, as Chris is just too oblivious to the world he so fervently believes he understands.