Very poor and disappointing given the high rating on IMDb

Rating: 3/10 (13 November 2010)

This film was a massive disappointment given the high rating on IMDb. The characters do not come across well and don't encourage any empathy. The relationships between the lead character and the people that he meets on his trip are overly sickly sweet and seem to happen overnight and don't feel credible at all. It is sad that this film is based on a true story given the outcome and the lack of communication with his family, but ultimately it is not a particularly good film and I wouldn't say the acting was anything particularly commendable. I would describe this as a fairly weak 'coming of age' film with higher pretensions, and the only difference being is that it has a sad and unfortunate ending.