Incredible story

Rating: 6/10 (25 April 2008)

I don't want to rate this too highly.
Don't get me wrong, it's a very good movie. But the motives of the main character are highly questionable.
He's a guy who just graduated college and gives up everything he has to go travelling around America. That might not sound like a big deal.
He donates his life savings to charity and basically becomes a tramp, travelling from place to place and surviving on what he can forage for the main part. He's got no survival skills or expertise, all he has is books.
And that's pretty damn stupid & incredibly arrogant to think he'll make it. He doesn't ever try to contact his family who he estranged himself from. He doesn't really like his parents, he found out his father was married to another women with another child when his mother had him & his sister.
He does seem to like his sister but his father is prone to bouts of aggression & some domestic violence to his mother. Their not a dysfunctional family by any means, they sound like pretty normal average people to me.
This is not their story though, its his story of travelling across America, adopting a new identity (he decides to call himself Alexander Supertramp) and the people who he meets and whose lives he interacts with and for some of them influences and makes changes upon.
The film looks amazing, the locations are beautiful. All the minor characters he meets along the way are also played very well by the supporting cast (Even the normally unbearable Vince Vaughan playing a totally different role from normal shines in this movie). I didn't believe in the character of his father (played by William Hurt) very much, he just didn't convince me.
The eventual ending of this film is quite sad but I won't spoil it. The musical soundtrack is also fantastic, as written by Eddie Veder. Even if your not watching what is quite a long film for the plot or characters then enjoy either the locations or music which add hugely to the very moving story.
It's a bit meandering in places and very difficult to watch in places also but it's worth sticking with. Not a hugely feel good film but quite an interesting story which is based on someones real life.
I'd recommend it.