The Book Wins

Rating: Null/10 (22 January 2008)

I found Jon Krakauer's book to be a fascinating and sad study of McCandless, but the combination of Penn's screenplay, direction and a lead actor without the necessary talent/skills to convey McCandless' complex ideology resulted in a movie most notable for supporting actors' performances and stunning scenery. Unfortunately, Mr. Hirsch was unable to hold his own in scenes with Holbrook and Keener, who wiped him off the screen. Mr. Hirsch didn't even have to do the usual actor's homework of writing his/her character's autobiography; all he had to do was read Krakauer's book. So many literary layers were lost in translation to the screen, which resulted in deeply disappointing movie.