The experimental, 100-word review: Into the Wild

During our class, Joshua Rothkopf (a Time Out New York film critic and our instructor) told us about the 100-word reviews several publications, including his own, featured. Naturally, I wanted to try this for myself. Our final assignment was to analyze three reviews of Into the Wild (that paper is coming next). After I finished this, I decided on a lark to write my own review of Sean Penn's latest directorial work. It was tough! Even though I boiled down my thoughts in my head before I began typing, I still had the worst time removing the last 10 words - and editing is what I do for a living.

Rarely has music so complemented its subject as Eddie Vedder’s Springsteen-esque vocals do in Sean Penn’s fourth directorial effort, Into the Wild. Vedder’s lyrics embody the untamed nature of the film and Christopher McCandless (Emile Hirsch), a recent college graduate who ditches his cushy life in search of the “ultimate freedom” in Alaska. If only the protagonist of this meandering, Lonely Planet trip across the American West weren’t so self-righteous. But McCandless, the basis of Jon Krakauer’s 1996 nonfiction book, seems more insipid than inspired, foolish than free. No amount of pulsating chords and sweeping landscape can overcome a smug hero.