Quartile rating: 5/10 · 3 ratings
After graduating from Emory University in 1992, top student and athlete Christopher McCandless abandons his possessions, gives his entire $24,000 savings account to charity, and hitchhikes to Alaska to live in the wilderness.
Into the Wild is a beautifully crafted adaptation of Jon Krakauer's book, with Sean Penn's direction drawing a powerful performance from Emile Hirsch as McCandless. The cinematography by Eric Gautier is stunning, capturing the vast American landscape and Alaskan wilderness with an almost spiritual grandeur. The plot is compelling and emotionally rich, structured non-linearly to great effect. However, the coming-of-age idealist-abandons-society narrative has familiar roots in American literature and film (Thoreau, Kerouac), keeping Novelty from reaching the top tier. The ending, while faithful to the tragic true story and genuinely moving, is somewhat inevitable and loses some dramatic tension as a result.