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Rating:  - Spectacular and Moving!
This is an incredibly detailed account of a young man's journey of self-reflection away from the dismantling extravagance of society. Sean Penn did a marvelous job directing and if I had one quarrel with any of his decisions, it would be the closing sequence. The camera "spins" away from McCandless which is a bit irritating and I felt that it was amateurish and kitschy at best. Otherwise a brilliant film that we could all learn a lot from. Beautifully captured landscapes and weather, encounters with wildlife and the brilliance of the supporting actors really enhanced the overall viewing experience for me. There isn't a finer video rendition of a book that I know of. Cheers to Sean Penn and the rest of the cast for really making this book sing as a film.
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Rating:  - MMMMM. Those berries look good!
Oh, my God! I have been CHANGED!! Christopher McCandless is a GOD!!! He went into the Alaskan wilderness and came out a deity to be reckoned with! He made the decision to forego all personal wealth, in search of the ultimate answer! It's SOOOOO romantic, I want to cry. ALL of you folk who didn't like this film just didn't get it!! You are people incapable of dreaming the BIG dream!! This story is so inspirational, only those who understand Chris' journey toward enlightenment can truly call themselves devotees of His Divine Majesty!!
His Family were worthless money-grubbers, His Mother was so out of touch with reality, and seeing his Father cry, at the end was so emotional (NOT). His "friends" just refused to accept that there are more important things than living on a slab of cement, out in the middle of nowhere, marking time, not caring that communing with the higher power is more important than life, itself!! And the old man? He just represented to Chris all that is wrong with humanity!! Leave all his worldly possessions to a man who has forsaken it? Was he nuts? Chris was above all that, the old coot was too stupid to see it!!
When he reached Alaska, the vistas were beautiful!! It sure looked as though it was tough to be there, but Chris just KNEW what to do!! Yes, he made a mistake shooting that moose, but it was an honest one, and he can't be faulted for not knowing how to preserve the meat. He was just a displaced city kid, after all. His run-in with the bear had the hair on the back of my neck standing up!! It's a wonder he wasn't mauled or eaten. I guess the bear realized that Chris' journey wasn't over, yet!! I cried when he found out he ate those poisoned roots, but happy, too, because his story wouldn't have been so inspiring!! He died a HERO! No doubt about it!!
You will have to forgive the one star rating. As of now, I would give this film 100 stars!! This is entertainment at it's finest!! Sean Penn captured the essence that was Christopher McCandless expertly, as an enlightened Director/Producer should!! I am ashamed to have thought that Christopher McCandless was anything but a GOD!!!!
Rating:  - Leaves you with more questions and insights on life
t has been a while since I have watched a movie that evoked such powerful emotion. There is much controversy about this young man's life - ranging in the extremes - admiration or pity. That's what great movies and art usually do, they don't leave you with clear cut answers, but leave you with more questions and leave you thinking about the deeper things of life. Life in general as well as our own personal lives. I am really intrigued by this young man's life, and am now set on reading the book. The movie was beautiful to watch - the scenery across the U.S., as well as the pure, unpretentious Emile Hirsch. (*Spoiler) At the end of the movie, I was left devastated - mourning for a life that ended so quickly, and so alone. A tragic ending as he realized in solitude that "happiness is real when shared". Many might say that he was too reckless and stupid - not enough preparation and planning - that some even go as far to say he got what he deserved. Yet those that judge him so, do not know how much life he lived in those last few months in freedom. You might live a whole life, being safe, secure, in a planned, structured, comfortable life. The few months he lived in the wild, may have meant just as much as or even more, than a lifetime lived in fear and complacency.
Rating: - Into the Bad Movie
I know, I know. Everyone loves Into the Wild, but I just don't think they understand it very well. I do understand it, however, and it's not a good film at all.
I've taken a film course, so I know a thing or two about what a good movie has to have in it in order to entertain the audience (be it comedy, musical numbers, animals, or violence). This movie has none of that but instead follows this scruffy teenager around as he explores the meaning of life by burning up money and engraving things. I will give Into the Wild credit for being the best movie ever about engraving things into a belt, but it doesn't have too much competition frankly!
Emile Hirsch and Sean Penn are great in this movie, but there's nothing that really grabs you as an audience member. Why doesn't Emile's character Christopher/Alexander ever fall in love? That would really hit one out of the ballpark for me, Joe Viewer, because I would be like very interested in how he and his girlfriend were going to survive. But I don't want to see a movie about some dude talking to himself for 2 1/2 hours! At least if they made just one of the animals talk back to him (like Disney does so well), then it would have made much more sense.
All in all, I think this movie is beautiful to look at, like Christie Brinkley, but doesn't have that much substance because there's no dramatic tension or life revelations other than 2 1/2 hours is a long time to be sitting down.
Rating: - Superb Film about Looking so Far for Something that is So Close
Into the Wild is one of those movies whose images stay with you after the screen goes dark. This is a tribute to the subject-- a tragic and confused young pseudo idealist, Christopher McCandless-- and Sean Penn and his crew.
McCandless has just graduated from Emory University. He's bright, well-liked, talented, the world is his for the taking-- it seems. Then he chucks it all, burns his money, abandons his vehicle, donates his graduate school fund to charity and hits the road. He's a leatherfoot, hoofing all across the country from Atlanta to South Dakota, on to California and finally to his goal of the utopian loner's dream world of "Alaska". Alaska is quoted here because it represents far more for McCandless than just a remote place full of emptiness and nature. It represents the "wild" - that gorgeous and challenging place where he can find himself, or so he thinks.
He's on a wild goose chase with himself but doesn't quite understand or realize it. He thinks he's stuffing life and experience and learning into all the time that he has-- he's abandoned everything including his sister and parents. In fact, he refuses to communicate with them at all. Their heartbreak, worry, fears, and frustrations are with us the viewer at all times and we wonder (as do a few characters in the film) silently, "how can he do this to them"?
Chris hits the road hard. He takes odd jobs, and goes from frustrated relationship to the next one. But they always are frustrating because he simply will not give of himself. They aren't frustrating for him, but for those who want to befriend him. His search for personal meaning is truly little more than an avoidance of his own personal demons, mostly from his parents' history and rocky marriage. He is surrounded by love, people who want him, his company, his brilliance and soft, caring approach to the world. He is attractive to others, but he loathes himself somehow. In the wilds of the Alaskan wilderness he thinks he will find what he is looking for and he does, but not in the way that he expected.
Again and again, people that Chris meets offer their friendship to him and sometimes their love. But he cannot accept it. Something in him prevents him from accepting love or truly giving it. Perhaps it would be contrary to the loner path that he'd chosen?
This is a sad story, so beautifully filmed. The acting is spot on, too.
Hal Holbrook plays an old man with a painful secret of his own. He knows that Chris and he are two of a kind and need each other. We in the audience also know this. Holbrook is Chris' chance for stability and a home, the true path to insight for someone whose core issues are built upon a perceived betrayal and lack of love from others, mainly his parents. It's a hard moment for the viewer when Chris walks away from Holbrook abandoning another fortunate opportunity for healing and happiness, but it is not so hard for Chris whose focus is solely on getting to his personal nirvana that he understands and expects Alaska to be.
Alaska is a beautiful but challenging place. Superbly filmed, it is easy to see how Chris would want to be there, challenge himself and try to find himself, alone-- try to find a way to fit in with others which is truly the issue-- alone.
The exact cause of Chris' death is not fully known. The book's author and Penn both make the case the McCandless accidentally poisoned himself. But later tests on the suspected plant material recovered from his camp site cast serious doubt on this theory as no poison was found. According to the diaries that he left behind he had decided to return to civilization but a raging river full of spring melt prevented him from doing so. He stayed in his camp, wasting away. But only a mile away was a perfectly usable crossing, and less than half a mile away was a still part of the river where he could have fished to his heart's content with only his hands as the fish were so plentiful there. But he did neither and apparently chose to stay and face his demons and his new understandings alone.
It is not clear if Chris is a hero-- the lone introvert heading into the wilderness akin to Thoreau to find the "truth", or rather a spoiled city boy with only ignorance and dreams and personal pain and perhaps some mental illness driving him on.
The locals in the wilds of Alaska often speak of such people who come to Alaska to find themselves, swollen with pride like the rivers full of melting snows. And they have little respect for them, as they tempt fate and the extreme wilderness and usually lose.
McCandless affected everyone he met in a positive way. His writings are those of a young man still trying to understand but so deeply haunted by something he could only identify at the very end that was at the heart of his troubles. The tears of his parents, his friends, and even his own at the end are palatable in this beautiful film by Sean Penn.
This is a deeply troubling story of someone who so needed help, was offered it-- but would not or could not accept it.
The world is full of Chris McCandlesses going about their daily routines. And perhaps this is why his story has such resonance for so many. He chose to break out of the life he was living, a life that gave him no comfort or solace-- and stride into the unknown to find one that worked for him. It may be a loner's story or a vagabond's tale, but there is a universality about the demons that haunted Chris, and his single-minded yet unfortunate response to them.
There is no glory here, and little to reflect upon but the pain of someone who is unable to stop, unable to find another path-- until his dream of Alaska and the wilderness with all its perils was met and its lessons pulled from it at whatever the cost. This is a superb film.
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