A Most Noble Effort

Rating: 7/10 (4 December 2007)

While not nearly as good as the book, I commend Sean Penn's efforts as it must have been very difficult to adapt this tale of Chris McCandless's fatal Alaskan odyssey. Also worth mentioning is Eddie Vedder's superb acoustically-driven score, his first ever.
As one might expect from a Penn movie, he casts many notable names, including William Hurt as the stereotypical cold father, Catherine Keener as a nomadic hippie, Vince Vaughn, and a surprisingly energetic Hal Holbrook. Emile Hirsch plays Chris decently enough, showing noticeable dedication (he must have really lost weight towards the end) but still does not stand out as much as the more veteran-like supporting cast.
Penn includes some nice subtle touches, such as actual black and white footage of apartheid and other social and political crises of Africa as Chris's sister names out his final courses and grades from Emory University. At times he goes overboard though, indulging in clichés like an overhead shot of Chris swimming naked on his back with his arms stretched out like Jesus on the cross. I found the most powerful scene to be but a close-up photograph of the real Chris McCandless as he sat scruffy-bearded and grinning outside of the vacant bus he made his home, an enlarged and color version of the same photograph from inside the book.
As I was finishing the book I thought this would make for a fascinating Werner Herzog documentary in the tradition of "Grizzly Man." McCandless falls into that same kind of iconoclastic realm as any one of Herzog's protagonists. Penn gives us the romanticized Hollywood version.