I feel sorry for the kid, but

Rating: 2/10 (10 April 2009)

He died stupid. I have lived in Alaska, and I picked up the DVD out of a nostalgia for the place. Apparently the producers did not bother about Alaskan conditions or the realities of "living on the land" before shooting this dog. We have an idealist who burns money and gives his college fund to Oxfam to feed others, but in his wending west seems never to turn down a free meal or a free ride, while turning down implied and implicit offers to adopt him by those who have lost children, and turning down sex from a 16-year-old (ethical, but a bit out of place in a hippie encampment). He gets good advice from all the nice people he meets (the only not-nice person in the film is the railroad guard who beats him) and apparently forgets it all on the spot.
In Alaska, it really gets silly. Apparently he is somewhere in the Tanana Valley, if his plant book is anything to go by, living in a steel bus hull lacking a window or two. I know a family who wintered in Tok (in that valley) in an insulated tent with no windows: they cut and burned a cord of wood _daily_ to survive (they did have a chainsaw). He apparently stops cutting wood entirely after gathering some sticks on a beach in California. Certainly, he lucks out in the matter of light--whoever abandoned the bus apparently left gallons and gallons of oil behind--he is never in the dark. Or without matches, for that matter.
He kills a cow moose, apparently with a .22, which is really wonderful shooting--moose have been known to pay about as much attention to .22 bullets as they do to yellowjackets. In good weather, he seems to spend his time mooning in the bus instead of hunting, fishing, or bringing in wood for next winter. When he gets desperate for food to the point of delirium, he eats the wrong plant and poisons himself.
It was depressing to learn that this was a "real" story, that a genuine kid apparently was this appealing and this dumb. I am sorry for his family who were, according to him, terrible parents. All of our parents were terrible in one way or another. Most of us get over it, at least those of us who live past 23.