Beautiful cinematography. Worth watching again if only for the nature scenes. I didn’t think the conflict with Chris’s parents was set up well enough to explain his behavior. Also, most of the action takes place between 1990 and 1992, but the storyline seems very late 50s, early 60s. Nonetheless, well acted and with some surprising twists. Kudos to Sean Penn for making it.

wow. I’m in love with this film. I totally loved it!!
there was such a great life lesson to be learned here..
that happiness is not only found in human relationships (nature is amazing!), but in the end, true happiness must be shared. :)

This was a beautiful movie. I was amazed that, contrary to reviews I’d read and heard, I ended up really disliking the subject. He misinterpreted so much great reading! But watching someone make these mistakes and seeing the grief of family and friends really hit a nerve and turned this movie into something much deeper than what I had expected (and, yes, I did expect the final outcome, I had just expected to agree more with the young man’s decisions).

My main problem with this movie is probably a plus for many: I was taken out of it every time Eddie Vedder sang. His voice is too iconic for a movie of this depth. I wanted to lose myself in the landscape and the problems of this youth, instead I kept being reminded of my own adolescence and high school dances.

This movie looks very good. The cinematography is excellent. That’s the upside. The downside is that the people in it are distant. unknowable and unsympathetic.

Watching this film one gets no real sense of the childhood trauma that is mentioned in the sisters (tedious) back story so it’s very difficult to see the main character as nothing more than a self-obsessed slightly mentally unstable person who found it impossible to understand human relationships.

Whenever he is drawn in by someone he rejects any possibility of a relationship and remains a loner – but why? The film makes a big deal of his burning all his money ($24,000) but clearly this was not a big deal when his father is a multimillionaire.

I could not understand what he expected to find in Alaska apart from snow. He seemed to suggest at one point that he would stay there alone for a few months and then he would be sorted out. Obviously this plan was (literally) fatally flawed.

Penn’s direction is all self absorbed and portentous. Basically it comes across as one big vanity project. I got half way through and turned it off. You may fare better of course.

so overall, i liked this, although i thought i could hear sean penn too many times. as for the actual story..to me, the guy just seemed selfish. bratty. yea, it was probably a phase, but shit, it was a phase that ended up getting him killed. and did he ever really forgive his parents? what a turd.

having read the book i was looking forward to this movie. i missed it when it was in theatres and rented it the day it came out. the movie followed the book remarkably well, which is always a pleasant surprise. the one thing that i did find was drastically different was that in the book christopher mccandless does not know he has eaten the poisonous plant instead of the edible. therefore not realizing he is going to die. heart wrenching story, yet also inspiring. here was an intelligent, young man who defied everyone around him and went out and did what he wanted to do. in doing so he found the family unit he seemed to seek. i thought emile hirsch did a wonderful job portraying mccandless, in both appearance and what i can only assume was his free-spirit, independent, adventurous, personality. i can’t help feeling that although scared mccandless died doing something he loved and was at peace.