Into The Wild is a 2007 biographical film based on the life of Chris McCandless (Emile Hirsch). It follows his journey into the Alaskan wilderness, as Chris strives for freedom, adventure, connection, and love. Many people today still crave these fundamentals, and the story’s relevance can be anchored to the present day as digital creators who live unconventional lifestyles continuously obtain virality on social media.
Initially a book, the movie follows Chris’s navigation of adulthood. The film uses reverse chronology, beginning with a glimpse into his life alone in the Alaskan wilderness. The viewer is then snapped back to his graduation: a seemingly perfect, all-American family of four celebrating their son. However, very early on, the tension between Chris and his parents becomes visible. Though unmistakably affluent, it seems Chris is unsatisfied with his life. We quickly see his desertion of all things material, starting with the audacious move to donate his life savings (some $24,000) to Oxfam and then, before cutting ties with his family completely, his decision to burn his last wad of perfectly good dollars. Some see this as an indication of his obliviousness to his own privilege: that to Chris, money has always been abundant and is therefore expendable. But when you continue watching, you see the deeper layers of his psyche reveal themselves.
Narration from his sister Carine (Jena Malone) provides the viewer with insight into their troubled home life. An abusive father, a complicit and emotionally manipulative mother; the two siblings are left reeling under their lies and inundated with various unacknowledged traumas. This dysfunction becomes the catalyst for Chris’s rejection of society.
Non-diegetic sound in the form of voice over textures the film with a poignancy that feels personal, giving the viewer access to the crux of Chris’s psychology. Speaking on their parents’ toxicity, Carine informs us how their hypocrisy and secrecy “struck at the core of Chris’s sense of identity. They made his entire childhood seem like fiction”. Whilst financially prosperous, their parents had forgotten that what their children really needed, more than money, was love, and “by the time the company made its first million”, Carine tells us, “the careerism and money only seemed to embolden their blindness”.
It is hard to say exactly what moment solidified Chris’s decision to forsake his material wealth for a life outside of the poisonous grasp of ‘society’. As with all things, I suspect it was an amalgamation of tiny hurts, small wounds that gathered force under their growing numbers before transforming into an inextricable mass and a mind made up.
His ultimate goal of living alone in the Alaskan wilderness is his belief that society, and by extension people, are the problem. This idea that capitalism, over-consumption, humans, even, are ‘the real virus’ is as relevant today as it ever was. Many people still feel the unease that Chris felt: that the separation and individualism of western society is fundamentally destroying our need for community. The audience is encouraged to reflect on their own relationship to our heavily materialistic world and the extent to which meaningless ‘things’ can bring us real, lasting happiness.
Digital creators like The Travel Project, Yaknowme_hitomi or Isa.paige have amassed hundreds of thousands of followers, sharing snippets of their fluid, off-grid lifestyles that preach connection to nature and deep trust in the universe. Their popularity lies in their divergence from the norm; these people are living the lives many crave but are too scared or doubtful to enact. I had my own Into The Wild moment after the rather impulsive decision to spend a month alone volunteering at a yoga retreat in Costa Rica. In exchange for my labour, I got accommodation and food for free. All l I had to pay for were flights. I wanted to get away from everyone I knew, away from all expectations, anxieties, and repeating cycles. While the trip was exactly what I needed, I remember feeling, especially when on deserted beaches or walks through dense jungle foliage, very lonely. I remember thinking how much better it would be if I had someone to share the moment with.
Chris arrives at a similar conclusion towards the apex of the film, realising the desperate need we all have for human connection. After weeks with no human contact, he begins reading Family Happiness by Leo Tolstoy. The word ‘people’ levitates from the page as he reads, magnified to highlight its importance. Later, in a delirium, Chris scrawls what will become the ultimate message of his legacy: “Happiness only real when shared.”
What Chris was desperate for, what many people today seem desperate for, are the basic pillars of fulfilment; as Tolstoy puts it, “the possibility of being useful to people to whom it is easy to do good, and who are not accustomed to have it done to them; then work which one hopes may be of some use; then rest, nature, books, music, love for one’s neighbour. Such is my idea of happiness”.
In this “idea of happiness” lies a perfect encapsulation of the requisites we all crave. What we need more of is not separation from one another, in fanatical expeditions ‘into the wild’, but conscious, grounded commitments to connect with the people immediately around us. It is quite simple really. We do not necessarily have to abandon traditional lifestyles and escape society to be happy, but choosing to notice the little miracles of life, the opportunities for small talk and new friendships everywhere we go; these are the true treasures of existence and in them, like Midas, we can make gold from dust.
Words by Jade Serna
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