Selfish idiot throws his life away in the wild

Rating: 3/10 (12 November 2007)

Biographies are usually about people we wish we had known, people whose lives were of great significance or filled with drama. I think of Patton or Laurence of Arabia or many others. I am sure as movie fans that you can fill in the blanks. Now Sean Penn offers us Christopher McCandless. Who? Was his life a subject for cinema? Let's see. He lived a boring uneventful life tooling around in the wild for a while (should be some dramatic music here) usually by mooching off others or off the technology and civilization he abhorred. He created nothing. He changed nothing. He shaped nothing. He selfishly and thoughtlessly abandoned his family including a sister who loved him and never did him a bit of harm. He managed to walk away from everyone who ever cared about him or wanted to befriend him or help him. He had that always charming arrogance of those who believe they have all the answers to life that us lesser people just can't see. We insist on having a shower in the morning and not having lice in our hair or stinking. More the fools us. Apparently smelling back and hopping freight trains is some king of revelation of truth. If only we would abandon all this modern science and technology and just pee on a tree or look at a mountain. There has always been a cult that believed the secret was to run away. Somehow wasting your life doing nothing is better than spending it trying to actually contribute something. Just be. Just breathe. That's the ticket. Well that is the difference between us and animals. We try to do something, to learn something and make something and we fail and we try again. We do not run away. Why would anyone want to spend over two hours watching this pathetic loser destroy himself. It is like watching grizzly man. One is just waiting and let's be honest, hoping for a bear to get hungry and the real truth to be revealed. Like the grizzly, the wild is not your friend. It is beautiful to look at but you do not belong there. It will kill you for just that reason. Good bye Christopher. Let's hope there is no sequel.