Goodbye Stranger

It's not often these days that I come across a movie that stays with me very long. I'm not sure if it's Hollywood, or me, or both, but most of what I see lately makes me laugh or cry and then forget about it as soon as I leave the theatre or return the DVD. But over the weekend, I saw a movie that, as much as I would like to, I just can't shake. And I don't think I'll be able to forget it for awhile.

I came across Into the Wild by way of its soundtrack; I had heard and loved Eddie Vedder's version of "Hard Sun," checked out the rest of the soundtrack and loved it and decided that a movie with such a good soundtrack is probably decent. A lifelong soundtrack hound, I've always been a firm believer in the importance of good music to a movie. And in this film, the music truly brought everything together. However, the story left me confused, disoriented and troubled.

Before I watched Into the Wild, I had never read Jon Krakauer's book of the same name or even heard of its real-life subject, Christopher McCandless. All I knew of McCandless' story was what I had read in a short description of the movie, that, upon graduating college, he had left his life behind to live for a time in the Alaskan wilderness. What I didn't know was why he went, or what happened to him later.

The basic facts are these -- after graduating in 1990 from Emory University, McCandless (played in the movie by Emile Hirsch) departed on a two-year journey across the country, surviving on whatever means he had and ultimately deciding to head to Alaska. He didn't tell friends or family of his plans; he had gotten rid of his identification; and he took on the pseudonym Alexander Supertramp (or Alex for short). Upon his arrival in Alaska in April 1992, he hitched and hiked to a remote location, living in an old bus that hunters used for shelter, and, lacking adequate survival materials, died in that same bus that August.

There are a few ways to tell McCandless' story, and I'm really not sure which way I think is most accurate. The movie portrays him as something of a hero, an idealist who was fed up with the pressures and ideals of the modern world and wished for a Tolstoyan adventure. There are narrations by McCandless' sister (played by Jena Malone) that tell about the family's life while the two were growing up, about the secrets their parents kept from them and the not-so-secret screaming and shoving matches they had while the children looked on in horror. He is seen as a daring and determined young man who wants nothing more than to get far away from the life he's known in search of something more substantial.

But I can't help but wonder, once Alex Supertramp is stripped away, who was the real Chris McCandless? I have no doubt that he was as daring and idealistic as the movie suggests, but I have to believe that he was also incredibly selfish and arrogant, qualities the movie repackages and sells as determination. It is no big surprise, considering the way his upbringing is portrayed, that McCandless wants to leave his family behind, at least until he collects his thoughts, but even the wonderful friends he meets along the way are pushed aside for Alaska. So did he truly touch and change lives, or did those who met and helped him see him simply as a nice kid whose family must be worried about him?

Whoever he was, I can't help but think of him as too smart to be that stupid. He was college educated, creative and driven, yet he went out into the wilderness with almost nothing. He meant to test himself but did so in a way akin to taking the SAT without a pencil. He had so much to offer the world but instead took his gifts somewhere they would not help him or anyone.

But I think what bothers me most about this whole story is the fact that Chris McCandless almost succeeded. As much as I shake my head at the hubris of this young man, I am also jealous. I have never been so adventuresome as to want to live off the land, and I've never felt as if I needed to get quite that far away from society. But I always have been somewhat of an own-drum-marcher and can certainly identify with the desire to go in search of something -- anything -- completely new. And while I've made a few leaps before looking, I've never landed without opening my eyes first.

So how is a person like me -- someone who is generally satisfied with life but never content to stop searching for something better -- to interpret the story of Chris McCandless? Should I be inspired by him, or should I feel that those who try to emulate him are foolhardy? I think maybe it's OK if it's both.