#INTO THE WILD BOOK OR MOVIE MOVIE#

He never contacts his parents or sister, Carine, again. He lets his parents think that he is interested in law school, but instead, after graduating with honors, he donates his $24,000 savings anonymously to charity, gets in his car, and drives away without telling anyone where he is going, abandoning the use of his real name along the way. McCandless returns home and starts as a freshman at Emory, but his anger over this betrayal and his parentsвЂ™ keeping it from him grows worse over time.Д«y the time that McCandless is a senior at Emory, he lives monastically, has driven away most of his friends with his intensity and moral certitude, and barely keeps in touch with his parents. After graduating from high school McCandless spends the summer alone on a road trip across the country, during which he discovers that his father secretly had a second family during ChrisвЂ™s childhood. McCandless grows up in wealthy Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C., and is a very gifted athlete and scholar, who from an early age shows deep intensity, passion, and a strict moral compass. Those who don't consider McCandless praiseworthy probably won't enjoy this film adaptation.Into the Wild is the true story of Chris McCandless, a young Emory graduate who is found dead in the Alaskan wilderness in September 1992, when he is twenty-four. In real life, the cult of Christopher McCandless has little meaning to critics (mostly Alaskan) who believe that the idealistic 24-year-old wanderer basically committed suicide. If only he could have told his story himself. Even in his final moments (at least in the film), Chris - now starved and emaciated - has nature's beauty to comfort him. The 'simple beauty' Chris so cherishes in nature is perfectly captured.

#INTO THE WILD BOOK OR MOVIE MOVIE#

But one of the most impressive triumphs of the movie is its gorgeous cinematography. The excellent soundtrack features several songs by Eddie Vedder. Hirsch, who's in practically every scene of the two-and-a-half-hour film, gives a startling, career-high performance-he fully embodies Chris. Every performance in Penn's film is noteworthy. Whether or not you agree with the accuracy of the portrayal, it's fascinating - beautiful, even - to see a young man embark on his own hero's journey. The back-and-forth between Chris' days in Alaska and his time as Alexander the hitchhiker is effective, poignantly reminding the viewer of the kind of big-hearted man he could have resumed being had he been able to walk back out of the wilderness. In fact, he arrives there early in the film, camping out in a 'magic' bus that had been parked long ago as a crude base camp flashbacks fill in the two years leading up to that point.

Despite the seemingly deep human connections he fosters throughout his tramping days, Chris is single-mindedly focused on one goal: getting to Alaska and living off the land for a few months all by himself. Chris makes a life-changing impression on everyone he meets, including two hippies ( Catherine Keener, Brian Dierker) a grain elevator foreman ( Vince Vaughn) a 16-year-old folk singer ( Kristen Stewart) and, most touchingly, a lonely elderly man (Hal Holbrook). Based on Jon Krakauer's nonfiction best-seller Into the Wild, Sean Penn's adaptation martyrs Christopher McCandless ( Emile Hirsch) as an intelligent, idealistic, 24-year-old college graduate who gives his trust fund to Oxfam, burns the remainder of his cash, and takes off on an extended journey into the wilderness.

Into the wild book or movie