MovieChat Forums > Into the Wild (2007) Discussion > What I thought was a deal breaker for me...

What I thought was a deal breaker for me...

posted 8 years ago by rmeno
13 replies | jump to latest

I tried to like the main character... but the stories his sister was telling throughout the movie...were just ordinary stories... the story about the parents saying they were divorcing and which parent did the kids want to go with... she said it like it was the most horrible thing they could have endured..and it only happened to them... when in fact.... that practice has gotten very common in house holds that argue/fight then make up... it's a drama tactic.... also, the story about him walking to a neighbors house stealing cookies from their cookie jar.... how many people do not know someone that has a similar story of a kid....more people than not come from dysfunctional house holds...unfortunately that's the way family life has gotten in America...but they acted like they were so abused....when in fact, many others have had much much worse...

He basically lived off of other people... other people's kindness and generosity. Had other people not feed him and given him shelter along the way...he wouldn't have lasted as long as he did... other people took care of him..then when it was totally up to himself, he failed. There was no one there in the wilderness to feed him....cloth him... or had something that he could steal. I found it strange that he burned the money he had, yet worked odd jobs and taking things from others that someone had to buy, it just wasn't him. Staying in the homeless shelters, he was taking the bed of someone else who HAD NO OTHER CHOICES...he chose to live this way... and hoping trains... free loading, I mean someone other than him, bought and paid for those trains, permits, and coal/fuel....did he not think of that?....What he did, No...thats not living off the land... Killing animals too for no reason... was stupid. The animals belonged there...he did not.

The people I admire that live off the land give back to the land just as much as they take... all this guy did was take..and pity himself because his family wasn't the Brady Bunch....NeWS flash...MOST FAMILIES AREN"T... and how many kids get their college paid for without even wondering how it's getting paid back? He was lucky and chose to do NOTHING with his privileges...instead he wallowed in self pity, acting out fights between him and his dad, when he should have been trying to learn the land and make a positive impact instead of nothing at all...even when he was at the bus...all he did was lay around at the bus and write. Did he think someone was going to happen along and give him some food?? He didn't go anything to prevail.... he was really lazy... I mean, I hate to say it because he's dead and all...but people have lived much much longer...1000 years ago...on less.... there is no reason he should have died...the only real reason he's dead, is because of himself.

[–] jroyster 8 years ago

Totally agree with you on all these points. As the movie went along my hypocrite counter went through the roof. This privileged kid undergoes issues that millions of others have and he and sis acted so abused. Give me a break.
One note he did redeem himself a little in that he didn't stay actually stay in the shelter. I nearly stopped watching at that point. But everything else he did he relied on the work kindness and money of others who did not have the luxury of blowing off 24k.

[–] MaeLeeMae 8 years ago

Agree. And the sister to whom he was supposedly so devoted to...never contacts her and even when he knew he was dying, yet he takes the time to write and pose with the placard where he'd written, "I've had a happy life and thank the Lord. Goodbye and may God bless all!" but not a note to her. Who knows what was going on in his mind. Perhaps he wasn't as devoted to her as we have been led to believe.

[–] mhpayne78 8 years ago

Yes, I too agree with your comments. Part of me wanted to tell him to get over himself and his hatred of society. It's not perfect, but neither is living on your own in the wild where you eventually just die to prove some point. And I agree with the comments people have stated about him living off the kindness of others so often in his travels. Did he give it back? Pay it forward? Also, I endured far worse as a teenager and I'm still a pretty well functioning member of society, lol. He could have lived a simple life regardless.

[–] Gorefanatic78 8 years ago

I also agree with everything stated and couldn't help myself from pointing out how much of a hypocrite he was being. Having said that, I honestly think he was committing suicide. His actions, his blatant disregard for his own life, everything. This is a college educated individual who went out into the wilderness with no training and no experience. He HAD to have known what the outcome of that would be. Suicidal people don't always do things that make sense. I think he was a truly damaged individual who wanted to experience something before he died, I hope that in reality he was able to experience that.

[–] infracaninophile 8 years ago

This is a college educated individual who went out into the wilderness with no training and no experience.

A fair deduction from what was presented in the movie. In fact however the real McCandless had a great deal of wilderness camping experience, dating back for around a decade, and including many solo trips into wild and lonely places - but not into the subarctic. The challenges specific to Alaska were not familiar to him and he did underestimate them. The movie also doesn't make clear that his plan was only to spend about 2 months in the bush, and then to go back to Carthage (he had promised Wayne he would be back in August to help with the harvest).

The film also omits the fact that McCandless was injured in some way and this apparently was a factor in his not walking out before it was too late. Why Penn decided to present his "hero" as an ignorant neophyte (and an antisocial one at that) is beyond me, but so it is. The story of the real McCandless, so far as we can ascertain it, doesn't suggest that suicide was a factor. Poor planning had something to do with it, as did sheer bad luck. If not injured, he was only a day's hike to the park service road which had a bridge over the river and plenty of facilities nearby. He also had a detailed map, lots of money, and ID, which the film doesn't let you know about.

[–] chell-glados 8 years ago

Seriously?

So this complete moron WASN'T a complete moron? Why on earth would Penn omit that? :/

[–] palisade-1 8 years ago

Why on earth would Penn omit that? :/

Penn inserted incidents that never happened, and omitted a great deal of factual information that did have an important bearing on the real story of Chris McCandless.

WHY did he change a lot of things that, in effect, made his "hero" look like an idiot? Only Penn can answer that. It's not unusual, however, for directors to take a true story and change it so much that their "hero" bears almost no resemblance to the actual (usually deceased) historical person they are portraying. A more recent example is The Imitation Game. The protagonist of the film is nothing like the historical personage, although some historical details were respected.

The same is true in this film. It significantly alters the nature of Chris McCandless' journey, the events along the way, and his personality and objectives, so far as they are known. It seemed to me that Penn was trying to make a "romantic" figure out of C.M., a modern-day hippie who wanted to "return to nature." This is not supported by the evidence, but it is a theme in the film.

I like many things about the movie - the cinematography and score are excellent, and so is much of the acting. I don't however buy the portrayal of McCandless for a nanosecond. It is as fictitious as the portrayal of Alan Turing in The Imitation Game. Both are good movies, as entertainment, but not accurate portrayals of real events, and neither film claims to be. That's what "based on a true story" means - it doesn't need to contain more than a minuscule amount of truth.

It doesn't surprise me that viewers tend to be polarized about the movie. The "romantic" hero inspires some, while it alienates others.

I find the real McCandless a much more interesting character. A documentary that attempts to unearth some of the complexities that drove the real Chris McCandless is Ron Lamothe's Call of the Wild. One excellent feature of that film is that it does place Chris's journey in its historical context, which this movie does not. It also interviews a lot of people who knew Chris at different times in his life and neither celebrates nor denigrates his persona. It will interest people who want to explore the matter in moredepth and from a different POV than Sean Penn.

[–] chell-glados 8 years ago

That's so utterly pointless.

If I'd have realised the movie just took names and literally nothing else I don't think I'd have bothered.

Also I didn't know that about the Imitation Game. I've not seen it but I did hear that they butchered the antagonist and made his character hate Turring when historically he didn't. Kind of turned me off the film.

I might try and watch the documentary cos it sounds interesting. Also I have to wonder why his family haven't protested this film because it really seems to butcher Chris' character

[–] whoanelly (1587) 4 years ago

His previous backcountry experience was far, far from enough. No Alaska experience was a pretty big problem. People who gave him rides in Alaska tried to help him. They tried to tell him how unprepared he was: lack of equipment and proper clothing, etc. Lack of knowledge and subarctic experience combined with arrogance...

[–] fleurfairy 8 years ago

I think the one thing I did not like about him was his treatment of the Hal Holbrook character (sorry I can't remember his real life name right now). He gets this poor lonely old man to form an attachment to him, to start thinking of him as a son or grandchild, to love him and then when the poor guy puts his heart out there and offers to adopt him, McCandless shuts him down. To me, that was unconscionable.

[–] whoanelly (1587) 4 years ago

Well, that treatment might not be far very far from the truth. Here’s an excerpt from the NYT In 1996 on Krakauer’s book:

Mr. Krakauer, a contributing editor at Outside magazine, tracks down virtually everyone who knew McCandless in his two years of wandering. As their memories reconstruct Alexander Supertramp, an image of the young anchorite begins to emerge, so vivid at times that it dazzles, at others so mystifying that one wants to scream. The people who meet him love him, while the reader longs to kick him in the pants. An 81-year-old man whom Mr. Krakauer calls Ronald A. Franz loved McCandless so much he begged to adopt him as a grandson.

''We'll talk about it when I get back from Alaska, Ron,'' McCandless replied. The author adds: ''He had again evaded the impending threat of human intimacy.''

After he had slipped away, McCandless wrote Franz an insolent letter admonishing him to live as he, the Supertramp, saw fit: ''If you want to get more out of life, Ron, you must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life that will at first appear to you to be crazy.''

''Astoundingly,'' Mr. Krakauer writes, ''the 81-year-old man took the brash 24-year-old vagabond's advice to heart. Franz placed his furniture and most of his other possessions in a storage locker, bought a GMC Duravan and . . . sat out in the desert, day after day after day, awaiting his young friend's return.''
https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/98/03/15/bsp/krakauer-wild.html

[–] CoriSCapnSkip (2247) 7 years ago

Although I didn't feel like watching this, my mom tried and said she gave up when the main character apparently willfully dumped a boxcar full of corn for no good reason--just to be destructive or show he could. Does anyone know the significance (if any) of this scene and whether it happened in real life or just in the movie? Thanks.

[–] Strazdas (2472) 4 years ago

>I found it strange that he burned the money he had, yet worked odd jobs and taking things from others that someone had to buy, it just wasn't him.

I think the point of that was that he was "self-reliant and not dependant on fathers money". His way to say fuck you to the father.

>he was taking the bed of someone else who HAD NO OTHER CHOICES

Youd be surprised how many homeless are there by choice. Many of them had opportunities to work, find home but for one reason or another didnt (usually mental illness they refuse to get treated for).