an ordeal

Rating: 8/10 (22 January 2012)

This is a movie that is painful to watch. It is about 2.5 hours long. Like Romeo and Juliet you can see the dreadful end telegraphed long in advance. Chris is a charming boy, handsome, friendly, kind, heroically adventurous, idealistic, intelligent and a bit of a flake. The many people he encounters are a bit weird, but kindly too. The movie takes you all over the USA photographing some of the most beautiful and most desolate places.
I don't know how they did it, but Chris shrinks to a wraith over the period of months trying to survive in the Alaska wilderness.
The movie has some sickeningly corny Hallmark moments, such as when Chris and Mr. Franz laugh on the mountain, or his materialistic father and mother kneel in church. But most of the time the characters ring true, if eccentric.
Chris is exuberant like a little boy. Most of the characters in the movie all want to reach out and protect him, just as you the viewer do as well. But you cannot.
William Hurt as the stern father does a scene that should have won him an Oscar, where he just loses it and sits down in the middle of the road. The pain was etched on his face completely convincingly and in a way that was so painful to watch you had to look away.
The big surprise of the movie is even though Chris died at a very young age, he had more adventure packed in his short life than most people have in a lifetime. Because of that, his early death was not that tragic. Even Chris recognises this.