The review analysis: Into the Wild

For our last film-class assignment, we could write up to 1,000 words. I think I forced myself to stop at about 970. In his notes, Josh said I seem to find "critic as advisor" to be of value. Answer: Absolutely. Some movies I would see no matter what a critic says about them, e.g., Atonement, but other times, it's the reviews that sway me to go to a theater, to save a film for Netflix, or to avoid a flick altogether. (Oh, how I wish I'd done the latter with the 2005 version of All the King's Men.)

Into the Wild, Sean Penn‘s adaptation of Jon Krakauer‘s 1996 nonfiction best-seller, leads to reviewers’ talk of feelings, their own or their readers’ potential reactions. Newsweek’s David Ansen and Variety’s Dennis Harvey state outright that moviegoers’ response to the adventures of Christopher McCandless, a recent college graduate who ditches his lifestyle for a cross-country trip to a great “Alaskan adventure,” will determine whether they view Into the Wild positively. Entertainment Weekly’s Owen Gleiberman doesn’t bother hedging with an “if … then” scenario: He personalizes his review with multiple uses of the first-person pronoun.

Ansen’s review of Into the Wild appeared in Newsweek’s “Snap Judgment” section; as such, he has only about 75 words to make his point. (He uses five sentences and 74 words, to be exact.) As he is dealing with space constraint, Ansen gives some of his view right away, calling Into the Wild a “vital, lyrical, unsettling adaptation.” He also provides a broad summary in one sentence. By saying McCandless’ journey “ended in wintry Alaska,” Ansen doesn’t reveal the vagabond’s ultimate fate. Of the three reviewers, Ansen most directly tells his audience their personal experiences will determine their feelings, doing so upfront: “How you respond … will depend on your own history.”

Ansen conveys opinion and general information in equal measure in the remaining sentences, yet overuse of the verb “to be” weakens the writing. The repetition in the first two instances may have been deliberate - “eye for landscapes is stunning, affection for outsider lifestyles is tangible” - but also comes across as lazy. Saying star Emile Hirsch “performs heroically” rings awkward - Hirsch did lose a lot of weight to show emaciation, but that’s not really “heroic.” However, despite questionable word choice, Ansen has the sharpest ending of the three reviews: “…there’s an edge missing. The ideal casting would have been the young Sean Penn.” Beyond this statement, though, Ansen judges Into the Wild in its own bubble: no pop-culture comparisons, no relating back to Krakauer’s book, no reference to Penn’s prior work as a director.

Reviews in Variety appear to have a formula - 800 words, plot-heavy, geared more to the Hollywood scene than ordinary movie watchers - which may have hamstrung Harvey. The first sentence of this film criticism reads like a line from a book report; it‘s not until the next sentence we realize Harvey is reviewing a movie, let alone what he thinks of it. That second sentence also reveals the ending, noting McCandless’ “quest for the ‘ultimate freedom’ ended in 1992 with starvation in the Alaskan wilderness.” After debating possible responses to Into the Wild, Harvey devotes four paragraphs to narrative; it takes about 500 words to hit the meat of his opinion.

Because Harvey is writing for the “industry” more than Ansen or Gleiberman, he better places Into the Wild into the cinematic pantheon. Like Ansen, Harvey suggests viewers may have varied reactions to the drama (“room for myriad personal interpretations“), but does so with greater color. He roots one description to movie history (a “lyrical youth-rebellion flick in the classic late ‘60s/early ‘70s mode”). Harvey compares Penn’s direction of Into the Wild with his prior efforts and draws an informed correlation to Terrence Malick: “'Into the Wild’ feels heavily influenced by Terrence Malick, for whom Penn acted in ‘The Thin Red Line.’” Harvey’s remark about four actors who “etch memorable characters” is more of a throwaway, and the references to technical elements are cursory at best. Still, Harvey is the only reviewer to even acknowledge Into the Wild’s cinematography and music.

While Ansen and Harvey claim Into the Wild will trigger assorted feelings, Gleiberman proves this by giving his own reaction. He starts his 594-word review by discussing his interactions with the homeless and refers to that emotion in watching early scenes of Into the Wild. Gleiberman, like Harvey, has the length to expound on the plot, but he employs stronger language: “a ‘60s hippie-tramp who’s trashed all ambition … no counterculture to second his voyage.” However, in talking about his response to “slumming middle-class kid[s] in nose rings” and outlining McCandless’ journey, Gleiberman makes readers wait about 300 words to discover what he thought of Into the Wild, when he speaks of its “magnificent precision and imaginative grace.” He leaves the film’s ending ambiguous: “He’s going nowhere, just living, maybe dying …”

Like Harvey, Gleiberman writes for his audience - here, pop-culture afficionados. In describing Hirsch the actor, the EW scribe mentions George Michael and the television show Entourage; in talking about McCandless the person, Gleiberman calls him a “Gen-X Candide.” He does exclude some of his readership at one point, though, saying McCandless’ “journey of recklessness” is one “that maybe only a privileged kid could have imagined.“ (What - poor kids can’t dream carelessly?) Perhaps because his review is of such a personal nature, Gleiberman ultimately focuses more on the feel and craft of Into the Wild than on the performances - for example, commenting on its physical, visual nature with such vibrant verbs as “wandering,” “kayaking,” and “voyaging.”

By putting the decision whether to recommend Into the Wild back to their audiences, I wonder if Ansen, Harvey, and Gleiberman are doing a disservice to their more indecisive readers. Often, filmgoers don’t have the time or the money to see every movie out there, and so they look to critics to help them figure out what’s worth watching. The theme I gleaned from reading these reviews: Only I can decide if Into the Wild is something to see. And since I didn’t have enough to go on after these three analyses (more on the acting would have been nice, and I wanted to hear more about the score, about which the New York Times did a standalone article), I would have skipped Into the Wild had I not been assigned to see it.