Fabulous Story Ruined by Hollywood

Rating: 4/10 (18 February 2017)

This film is the portrayal of the life of a troubled young man, haunted by the thoughts and words of authors past and how their thoughts create within him, an inability to form meaningful relationships. Based on a fascinating true story, Penn nevertheless finds a way to destroy it. The real life subject, Chistopher McCandless, a recent college grad, sets out to "find himself" but in doing so, thoroughly and completely - and I do mean completely - destroys every prior relationship in his life. In the film he is portrayed as a Christ-like healer, saving the emotional and spiritual lives of everyone with whom he comes in contact despite the fact he remains aloof from them all and refuses to share his past with any of them. The closest he comes to any thing resembling a meaningful relationship is his implied sexual dalliance with his Oedipal Hippy Mom via which he totally destroys her relationship with her Hippy dude. Despite this, the film continuously portrays him in some sort of Messianic glow along with his Hippy benefactors who despite having no visible means of support, manage to own, maintain and fuel an RV as well as feed him for weeks at a time. And in typical liberal Hollywood fashion, Mc Candless' parents are economically successful upper middle class white college grads and therefore evil. They are featured as the exclusive source of all the young man's troubles with no consideration given to the possibility that he might have his own psychopathology. The film is well acted. The story is incredible. But the direction is plodding, slow and predictable. Full on, full steam Hollywood liberalism all the way: Bad parents. Christ-like abused kid sets out to find himself and saves everyone he meets along the way. Meh.