INTO THE WILD

Time for a rare movie review:

The Sean Penn directed Into the Wild is based on Jon Krakauer's best-selling book about Christopher McCandless, a 1990 Emory University graduate who leaves his family in the dark as he heads out on what would be a deadly adventure into, as the title declares, the wild.

Krakauer's painstaking research diligence always pays off for his books - I especially enjoyed Into Thin Air, the non-fiction account of a Mount Everest disaster - and this film is pretty faithful to his research. Read the Wikipedia entry here.

As for my critique of the film, it was entertaining despite some undoubted but necessary speculation. Watching the main character experience revelation was valuable; always a "moral" fellow, he lacked a spirituality thanks in part to his frustration with his parents' relationship and materialism. But that morality found foundation in his journey through God's creation - an amazing frontier of nature that many of us certainly forgo in our lives for the sake of things. Ultimately, it was his last friend, an elderly widower who confronted him about God. The film did a nice job portraying the presence of God as light shining down on us at just the right time.

Finally, Jesus makes His appearances throughout, some in positive light, and other times succinctly mocked. The film does not reveal that McCandless had any relationship with Christ, despite his spiritual smile at the wonders of his experience in God's creation. In the end, the experience of death was cold, perhaps accurate for one scared, alone, and in the wilderness, rather than one unafraid, among family, and in the comfort of the palm of God's hand.

But what would you expect from Sean Penn? I wondered as the credits rolled how many people marvel at God's creation (the outerparts of His realm), like Psalm 19:1-6, without taking that next step into His Kingdom (the inner sanctum), like Psalm 19:7-14.