The Oscar race starts in earnest today with Sean Penn's Into the Wild.
Yes, of course, there are films from earlier in the year that may figure into the competition when the Academy Awards nominations are announced.
But Penn's melancholic epic is a slam-dunk, a sure thing for voters in a variety of key categories, including as best picture.
On a personal level, this could really be 'it' for Penn, already a four-time Oscar nominee as best actor, with one win for his trophy case. Into the Wild could finally make him a best director nominee, an honour that would surely thrill Penn more than kudos as an actor (he does not appear in this new film).
Penn also deftly adapted Jon Krakauer's acclaimed non-fiction book to the screen, so adapted screenplay is another category of choice. Especially because Penn has spent a decade working to get this story told on screen.
Then we come to Emile Hirsch, who plays the tragic young protagonist -- real-life societal drop-out Christopher McCandless, a.k.a. Alexander Supertramp, a hobo on a unique mission of self-discovery.
With an exquisite tenderness and fragility, but also an inherent intelligence and sensitivity that seems perfect for Krakauer's portrait of the man, Hirsch channels McCandless into a flesh-and-blood character.
This is not an impersonation but a true acting job. Hirsch makes us believes so strongly in McCandless that even his mistakes -- the ones that doom him when he goes "into the wild" in Alaska -- seem perfectly logical. For that individual, with his limited knowledge of the environment, in that space and time.
That is an astonishing feat, as is Hirsch's ability to lose a big chunk of weight from his already small frame to look emaciated when the story demanded. If Hirsch is not named as a best actor candidate, the Oscars should be investigated for fraud and/or stupidity.
Into the Wild is intriguing, and quietly thrilling, because it operates on multiple planes with a fractured time line and impressionistic tones.
On one level, it is specifically the story of McCandless. In 1990, after the greed-is-good decade, he dropped out of school, gave his $24,000 college fund to OXFAM to feed the poor and stripped away most of his own possessions. Then, without telling his family, he took off down the highway to experience life without ego.
On his journey -- by car, on foot, by kayak and so on depending on the circumstances -- McCandless came across other remarkable people. Their interactions gave purpose to his own life. He in turn touched them deeply. Characters played by Hal Holbrook, Catherine Keener, Brian Kierker (a techie turned actor) and Kristen Stewart are notable in this regard.
But McCandless' family suffered. With a wonderfully evocative William Hurt (whose silent scream in the suburban street scene is breathtaking) as the father, Marcia Gay Harden as the mother, and Jena Malone as the sister (and narrator), we understand the human cost of dropping out.
On another plane, Into the Wild works as a contemplative study of America during a critical point in its socio-political history, a crisis of morality and conscience that pertains to its own time and reverberates now.
Penn's artistry is so mature, so stunningly evolved from his earlier films The Indian Runner, The Crossing Guard and The Pledge, that he offers his insights without any hectoring or lecturing. McCandless' powerful story is told with an elegant restraint, and that makes it all the more evocative.
(This film is rated 14-A)
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