Movie as good as the book

Rating: 10/10 (7 October 2007)

If you ever feel like you spend your life going in circles to a job you don't like and just want to throw your possessions in the car and hit the open road, this movie will hit home for you. I reached that point in 1999, and at age 25 I packed my possessions into my car in Atlanta and drove 23 hours west. In Summit County, Colorado, I met up with a close friend from Alabama who had spent the Summer in Alaska and we spent the winter unemployed (initially living on friends' couches). We had the Colorado pass and spent our days hiking and skiing. My one friend said that I had to read the book because it was me in a nutshell. Eerily, Chris died the day that I started at Emory (well the day listed in the movie - no one knows the exact day). Of course what Chris did was 100 times more extreme than what I did. My parents knew exactly where I was and could reach me on my cell 24 hours a day. Plus I was only gone for a few months and not for years on end. That is my own connection to the movie.
I saw "Into the Wild" yesterday, and I thought it was as good as the book - and I loved the book. I also loved John Krakauer's other books: "Into Thin Air" and "Under the Banner of Heaven". In fact, that makes me think that a lot of the people who are slamming this movie in other IMDb reviews may have an ulterior motive because they belong to a certain church in Utah that Mr Krakauer was very critical of in "Under the Banner of Heaven"... I also think some people might be slamming the movie because they don't like Sean Penn's politics (going to Iraq right before we invaded). Regardless, this was a great movie. The acting was great. I loved the book and was very excited a few weeks ago when I saw in Outdoors magazine that Sean Penn was making a movie out of it. Emile Hirche's acting was great as were all of the actors and actresses. Probably the only actor I didn't like was Vince Vaugn. While he played the part well, it just takes away from the Suspension of Disbelief when you cast one of the biggest names in Hollywood to play a small part in the middle of a movie. I think all directors should never cast big names who don't appear at the very start of a movie. I also agree with the person who complained about the scene where Chris looks at the camera and makes a face. No one was supposed to be filming him, so it just kind of again detracts from the Suspension of Disbelief (a term I remember from my one semester of Film Studies at Emory).
The Eddie Vedder music and the scenery were beautiful. I was excited to see that it was filmed on location at a bunch of places that I have been. I graduated from Emory University and they either filmed an actual graduation on the quad or they recreated one in the exact spot where real graduations are held. I also have traveled to a lot of the places that were in the film, including Anza Borrego Desert State Park in California (about 90 miles from San Diego). These are all really amazing places. It is mind blowing to think of riding the Colorado river all the way to the Sea of Cortez. I might be blowing parts of the movie, but I did check "Contains Spoiler". I guess I assume that everybody knows that he dies in the end in a bus, but maybe others are not as familiar with it as I am. To me, not knowing the ending is like seeing Titanic and being surprised that the ship sinks. Hopefully this movie, like Titanic, will also win an Oscar.
I now live in Virginia about 3 miles from where McCandless grew up. I saw the movie in Georgetown the day it opened (it was the only theater playing it in this area). I believe Chris's family was in the audience next to me. There were cameramen taking their pictures before the movie started. This is especially weird because the sister narrates the movie, and the father is abusive, and the mother just sits back. I saw their picture in a magazine later that week so I think it was really them.
I thought it was interesting how Shawn Penn dealt with the poisonous root. The movie quickly shows a montage of his botany book and pages that say poisonous root. This is certainly not as overt as Krakauer's book implies Chris was not a fool since this was apparently an easy to make mistake. But as all the Alaskans have pointed out, it was tested and the root wasn't poisonous. I think Shawn Penn would have done better if he hadn't even mentioned it. It detracts from the real point of the movie: Chris was an adventurer and he tragically died at a young age doing something he loved. Penn had 10 years to have learned his lesson about the roots. Krakauer didn't have the time or budget to get it accurate since the book came out shortly after the actual event and since he was most likely doing all the research himself. Think about it. Krakauer did amazing research by tracking down all the people Chris encountered across the country. I can forgive him for making a mistake about the root. It doesn't detract from this fascinating story. I really don't think McCandless deserves to be lumped in with the guy in the documentary who got eaten by the bear in Alaska. Chris was just trying to go back to an earlier time and live like the original explorers of Alaska. Those people all took risks. Some lived, some died.