Watch Out What You Ask For

Rating: 8/10 (19 February 2010)

Sean Penn makes his 9th Directing effort in this film. It is difficult to take a true story & put it on film without going too far into fictional events to make the film more appealing to a wider audience. Penn has the guts here to make this film more a work of Art, & this is to be appreciated.
The main story is really pretty depressing. A son who is totally detached from his family, graduates college & then disappears going as far away from them as he can get. Told in an unusual manner by his sisters narration, this film starts in the present & then goes back & forth tracing his life route from graduation across the country in search of his goal of exploring Alaska.
There is no glory in his quest. He is a 23 year old who feels he is not only detached from his parents but believes he is immortal & can learn to do anything. What the true story lacks here is what he lacked in life. That is besides going to Alaska, he does not seem to have a goal beyond there.
Alex really does come off in this film as a tragic character who does not really think about others, being way too into his himself. This story does a very good job of going through why in pursuit of his goal of Alaska, he ignores all the opportunities & people who befriend him trying to make him fit into a normal life. He abhors normal life until ironically, at the end of his life he writes that there is no meaning to life unless it is shared.
The theme of this like Jack London's Call Of The Wild, is survival. The various locations used to film it are amazingly photographed. Stunning is the word I'd use for some of these locations. All the characters in the film are well drawn & unless you get bored easily, you should find something interesting in the way this film is made.