Poetic, exquisite and haunting: one of the best movies of the decade.

Rating: 10/10 (11 October 2008)

Christopher McCandless (Emile Hirsch) was not a glamorous, iconic movie star; nor was he a billionaire and philanthropist or a politician who made a lasting difference. Rather, he was a young man whose achievements went far beyond his 24 years on Earth. Headstrong and determined, McCandless reached for his goal of embarking on a journey through the Alaskan wilderness, and from beyond the grave he continues to inspire young people to take up the challenge of getting back to basics and living off nature.
In a performance that is sure to establish him as being in the highest ranks of actors of his generation, Emile Hirsch masterfully harnesses Chris' tenacity, his inner disaffection and finally, his eventual vulnerability and anger at the world in a role I found myself relating to almost a little too much. Backing him up, Hal Holbrook and especially Catherine Keener provide backbones respectively to Ron Franz, the old man who becomes a voice of reason for Chris, and Jan Burres, a "rubbertramp" (wanderers who travel with vehicles), who shares Chris' platonic and spiritual love affair with nature.
However, it is ultimately writer-director Sean Penn's movie  and Into the Wild is indeed proof that Penn is every bit as gifted as a screenwriter and director as he is as an actor. His adaptation of Jon Krakauer's 1996 novel of the same name gets to the very core of the heart and mind of a confident but very inwardly scarred young man and thanks to some terrific editing and gorgeous outdoor cinematography, Penn succeeds in showing the wilderness in both its forms and powers: a treacherous entity that is harsh and unforgiving, but also as something very tranquil and heavenly that can map the human soul and show its limitations. Into the Wild is by turns powerfully moving in its dark humanism, and life-affirming in its depiction of a young man who reached for his ambitions and found peace within himself despite meeting such a tragic and premature demise. The best film of 2007. RIP Christopher McCandless 1968  1992.