Into the Wild

S. and I had a date night on Friday. We were planning to go get some dinner before the movie, but since I knew I'd be having popcorn, we just had something light here at home. I'd really wanted to see Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, but it's not playing here yet, so we (I) decided to see Into the Wild. I knew about the book, of course, because many of my friends have taught it in various writing courses. I knew he died in the end because, well, it says so on the cover. I never got around to reading it, I guess, because I just figured he was some freak-o who thought he could survive indefinitely in the Alaskan wilderness.

I'm so glad I went to see the movie because I learned how wrong I was. As is to be expected with actors playing people like McCandless, I fell in love with Emile Hirsch. So what if he's 22? Anyway, despite the very gendered storyline, I found myself liking Chris McCandless despite my desire not to. I didn't want to like him because I didn't want to somehow validate his stupid ideas about man vs. nature. Blah blah blah. But I did like him. So much that we immediately went to Barnes & Noble to buy the book after the movie. What I hadn't realized about his story was that he essentially got trapped up there for much longer than he'd planned on staying. He wanted to come back. Though he fashioned himself as a modern-day Thoreau, he also loved the company of others. This somehow gave me permission to like him. Because if he hadn't wanted to come back and he died the way he did, well, it's his own fault. Jesus.

The final scene will haunt me for a while.

Plus, it's incredibly well done. I'm no movie critic, so I don't have the language to articulate what Sean Penn did, but whatever it was, it worked. It was phenomenal at times.