"Is anybody here?"

Rating: 7/10 (6 November 2017)

I come away from this movie somewhat conflicted, not about the picture itself but of it's principal character, Christopher McCandless. I say that with some reservation as well, because when I was his age and fresh out of college, I spent a lot of time steeped in existentialist thought trying to figure out the meaning of life and how to conduct my own. In McCandless's case, there was also the family dysfunction at work, something that I never had to contend with growing up.
At the heart of the movie, I don't have a lot of problem with Chris's philosophy of "If you want something in life, reach out and grab it". The paradox in that statement occurred exactly at the time he was saying those words to guitarist Tracy (Kristen Stewart) who fell hard for Chris at the traveler's camp. She was 'reaching out to grab it' and things weren't going to work out for her in quite the same way. So life has it's way of throwing those kinds of curveballs at you.
No doubt some will find the message of uninhibited freedom and life without constraints to be an appealing one, but in the final analysis, doesn't the mere fact of existence require one to do the prudent thing? Chris McCandless's death was so unnecessary. Chances are, had he gone on to live say, a full five or ten years in the wild, he might have come to an entirely different conclusion about the meaning of his life and how to be a productive citizen of the world. His reading of Tolstoy offered a clue to an acceptable view of happiness - work which may be of some use, rest, nature, books and music. Loneliness didn't seem to be part of that equation.