Like Grizzly Man in his naive love of wildness

Rating: 7/10 (10 October 2007)

A disturbingly interesting film directed by Sean Penn, and very true to the original book. We all can relate to the true story lead character Chris McCandless(he changed his name to Alexander Supertramp for his sojourns), innocent, naive and youthfully stupid as we all were at that age, expecting the whole world and it's peoples to be our friend and nurturer and helpfully allow us to create a personal Utopia. Sadly, when we finally grow up, we see life doesn't turn out that way. It's filled with a lot of hard work and compromises, which we start to see realistically somewhere in our mid-20's or so. Alex didn't get old enough to see that truth, as he and Grizzly Man met the same fate due to poor judgement coming from just being young and dumb, and not seeing that their youthful utopian world view must be adjusted, compromised and modified greatly in order to live successfully later on in this world. Even most 60's hippies(the smart ones) who did the same vagabond thing saw that eventually. It seems to be human nature for the young to never seem to gain much insight from the previous generation's experiences even though they are basically very similar down through the ages.
Just like those 60's hippies, Alex hit the road as a vagabond and fell into many interesting adventures with oddball characters along the way. The story had all the usual trite causative and motivational bells and whistles behind it....bad parents(bad I guess because they were rich and successful)who did fight a lot, a cloyingly close sister(Hmmmm)who narrated the story, a liberal college degree, and no money problems at all growing up that may have protected him from the more practical world and life views of the less fortunate.
Thus the eventual Supertramp wanderer developed a serious hate of our capitalistic system(anything better out there?), and decided to live his life as a road tramp, working temp only when he needed the hated dollar in order to live and travel, and eventually get enough savvy and $$$ to get to Alaska where all the best things in life resided(in his mind)........beautiful scenery, wilderness, living off the land, no people, no need for money.........but also, 45 below zero winters, little natural food, no sufficient shelter(an old, uninsulated school bus in the middle of nowhere?), no one to talk to or love(he seemed asexual anyway), flooded rivers hemming him in so he couldn't go anywhere else much of the time. As he went to Alaska mostly unprepared for anything bad that could happen, it's too bad Chris didn't see a film like this one to discourage him before he went there and paid for for it with his life.
Emile Hirsch did a great job in the role of Supertramp, as he had the air of innocent confidence that Chris obviously had in order to undertake such a journey. Also, great road characters abounded in the film story, with Vince Vaughn and Catherine Keener and Hal Holbrook showing off as, respectively, a funny and sympathetic South Dakota farmer... a loving, aging hippie vagabond and flea market rat.... and an old desert-rat retiree who developed intense fatherly feelings for Chris and knew that Chris was headed for a bad ending. All helped and cared for Chris along the way as he prepared for his great and final Alaska adventure. The film had many beautiful scenes throughout of skies, deserts, rivers, mountains, tundra and ......of course......beautiful, but deadly Alaska for the unprepared.
I read the book so I knew the ending..... and just as in Grizzly Man, a lot of naive and emotionally-driven mistakes can get you killed, even if they seemed good at the time. Penn showed all of this well in his film and I recommend it, but don't go if you want a feel-good Hollywood ending, as it definitely does not have it.