A Film That Gets You Excited About Life

Rating: 9/10 (5 July 2008)

THE PLOT: True story about a young man named Christopher McCandless who graduates from college and then decides he has no interest in falling into society's trappings. After giving his life savings to charity and then, literally, burning the rest he drives west where he lives off the land and meets a lot of really cool people. Eventually he makes it to Alaska where he feeds off of wild berries and lives out of an abandoned bus.
THE POSITIVE: The film is incredibly fluid and engrossing. Despite its length it never becomes tedious and remains completely compelling throughout. It does a very good job of getting you to appreciate and understand McCandles who otherwise may seem extremely eccentric and weird. You really get inside his head and feel for him especially in the very moving finale. The people he meets along the way are very cool and engaging. It is nice that the film captures a hippie subculture that exists today and not just portrayed as a movement from a bygone era. Vince Vaughan is very good in a role that is a little unusual for him. It would have been even better had they fleshed his character out a little bit more. Hal Holbrook is nothing short of phenomenal. This role makes for a perfect book end to his great career. Watching him climb up the side of a very steep hill at his advanced his age is inspiring. If there was ever a performance screaming for a Oscar it is this one and it is a crime that he didn't get it. It is also nice that the film was shot on location at all the different spots where McCandless went as well as seeing a picture of the real McCandless at the very end.
THE NEGATIVE: Jena Malone as the film's narrator doesn't work. She has a voice that sounds like someone that just got out of high school and yet she ends up postulating on some very profound and philosophical thoughts that just doesn't seem convincing. It is good to see Hurt still working, but his small part as the perplexed father is pretty thankless. The scene where he flies into a rage at his wife seems more laughable than dramatic.
THE LOWDOWN: This is a film that will make you feel good and excited about life and the people in it. It gets high marks in every conceivable category.
THE RATING: 9 out of 10.