After several attempts and lots of desire I was beginning to wonder if there was a reason I shouldn’t see the movie “Into The Wild”, directed by Sean Penn. I knew it would affect me deeply after I saw it featured on the
Oprah show recently. There was something I couldn’t quite put a finger on in the interview, possibly a connection to our son Jason whom I thought had similiar comparisons, or maybe the fact that this book based on the real story of the same name was about this young man who would be so affected by the materialistic part of what was becoming his life that he decided to embark on a quest to find his true self, and died doing so. This trajedy to me was so sad. Weird as it may seem I find myself seeking tragic stories because I relate to them so deeply, possibly due to the death of our son Jimmy, at the age of 8, which was related to him being handicapped. It’s not so much that I want to relive his death, but that I feel such empathy towards anyone having to deal with the death of a loved one, especially a child. The feeling that comes over me is almost overwhelming, I want to hear their story and comfort them. I want to cry with them and hold their hand.So when I saw Oprah’s show and listened to the struggle that Sean Penn went through to be allowed to tell it, but also the making of the film, I knew I had to see it. At first the movie was only playing in far away select theaters with evening show times, and then the theater that was nearby was unexpectedly closed when we were finally able to go see it. Our third attempt was successful, and Into The Wild was just as moving and beautifully choreographed as I had heard it would be.
Chris McCandless played by US television and film actor Emile Hirsch, takes us over a 2 year period starting in June 1990 where he had just graduated with honors from Emory University in Atlanta, through the western United States, stopping in Arizona, California and South Dakota with his instinctual desire to head to the wilds of Alaska. Penn tried to retrace and film McCandless’ route as close as possible, and Hirsch at times with Penn leading, performed his own stunts. Along the way McCandless met and made some unforgetable friends, whom he promised to meet up with again after he’d followed his dream. The movie portrayed these friends as deeply admiring McCandless for his passion and loving his honesty and candidness. A few scenes with Hirsch in wild Alaska are hard to watch as he dropped 41 lbs to correctly portray McCandless at his end, starving to death. The photography all through out the movie is beautiful and made me want to go explore the great outdooors. Overall I highly recommend this movie, for it may help many find their passion to seek their inner identity.
