Product Description

This is the true story of Christopher McCandless (Emile Hirsch). Freshly graduated from college with a promising future ahead McCandless instead walked out of his privileged life and into the wild in search of adventure. What happened to him on the way transformed this young wanderer into an enduring symbol for countless people -- a fearless risk-taker who wrestled with the precarious balance between man and nature.System Requirements:Running Time: 148 Mins.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: ACTION/ADVENTURE/COMING OF AGE Rating: R UPC: 097361316949 Manufacturer No: 131694

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1594 in DVD
• Brand: PARAMOUNT PICTURES
• Released on: 2008-03-04
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Formats: AC-3, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD-Video, Special Edition, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: Danish, English
• Subtitled in: English, French, Spanish
• Dubbed in: French, Spanish
• Number of discs: 2
• Dimensions: 1.00 pounds
• Running time: 148 minutes

Amazon.com
A superb cast and an even-handed treatment of a true story buoy Into the Wild, Sean Penn's screen adaptation of Jon Krakauer's bestselling book. Emile Hirsch stars as Christopher McCandless, scion of a prosperous but troubled family who, after graduating from Atlanta's Emory University in the early 1990s, decides to chuck it all and become a self-styled "aesthetic voyager" in search of "ultimate freedom." He certainly doesn't do it halfway: after donating his substantial savings account to charity and literally torching the rest of his cash, McCandless changes his name (to "Alexander Supertramp"), abandons his family (William Hurt and Marcia Gay Harden as his bickering, clueless parents and Jena Malone as his baffled but loving sister, who relates much of the backstory in voice-over), and hits the road, bound for the Alaskan bush and determined not to be found. For the next two years he lives the life of a vagabond, working a few odd jobs, kayaking through the Grand Canyon into Mexico, landing on L.A.'s Skid Row, and turning his back on everyone who tried to befriends him (including Catherine Keener and Brian Dierker as two kindly, middle-aged hippies and Hal Holbrook in a deeply affecting performance as an old widower who tries to take "Alex" under his wing). Penn, who directed and wrote the screenplay, alternates these interludes with scenes depicting McCandless' Alaskan idyll--which soon turns out be not so idyllic after all. Settling into an abandoned school bus, he manages to sustain himself for a while, shooting small game (and one very large moose), reading, and recording his existential musings on paper. But when the harsh realities of life in the wilderness set in, our boy finds himself well out of his depth, not just ill-prepared for the rigors of day to day survival but realizing the importance of the very thing he wanted to escape--namely, human relationships. It'd be easy to either idealize McCandless as a genuinely free spirit, unencumbered by the societal strictures that tie the rest of us down, or else dismiss him as a hopelessly callow naïf, a fool whose disdain for practical realities ultimately doomed him. Into the Wild does neither, for the most part telling the tale with an admirable lack of cheap sentiment and leaving us to decide for ourselves. --Sam Graham

Customer Reviews

Moving and Inspiring
Just finished watching this film for the 2nd time. Cried like a baby both times. Between the direction, and Hirsch's, Keener's, Vaughn's (whom I usually can't stand) and (in my opinion) most notably Holbrook's performances, this has become one of my favorite films of the year. I know Holbrook's part was small, but he was amazing, and I really feel that he should have won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. Anyway, the scene with him and Hirsch in Ron's jeep is heartbreaking. When he asks Alex to let him adopt him, then realizing that he will never see Alex again, very sad. Kudos to Penn for his direction and screenplay.

Theories and conjecture
I'm not going to theorize about why CM did what he did. I have no idea. I'm not privy to his mind and thus I have no way of knowing why he chose to do what he did. However, I will say this, I cannot, under any circumstances, fathom having the guts to walk into the wild and make a go of it. I can imagine it all day long but I doubt I could actually do it.

The movie is intense and amazing. It tells a wonderfully tragic story.

I'm incredibly tired of reading reviews of people bashing this man for his "ignorance". Of course he was. We all are. But what makes him unique is that he tried. He took a gamble and it didn't pay off as most people would hope. He still tried. So to all of the wonderful experts on survivalism and backcountry living.... take note... The Man was searching for something. We'll never know if he found it. Ultimately, something found him. Call it a wasted life but it wasn't your's to waste. It was his.

That being said... it is a very good Movie. Regardless of the assumed reasons for any of it.

Try to watch it.

I watched it in disbelief
Coleridge taught us that to enjoy fiction, we need to have a "willing suspension of disbelief". But "Into the Wild" is supposed to be a "true" story: it should hang together (within the liberties required to compress years of plot into a couple of hours). What we get instead is Krakauer and Sean Penn's romanticization of a life and a death that make no sense. The viewer, like the family member of an alcoholic, starts in denial. When Chris McCandless buys rice, a book on native plants a 22 rifle and cartridges, we don't realize that that was ALL he took with him on his trek to the coast (no compass, no map, nothing to eat besides rice, no plan for what happens after he reaches the ocean). The author and director portray McCandless as a heroic youth (naive, perhaps, but heroic none the less).

However, about the time he settles down in an abandoned bus to starve to death because he realizes he cannot get back across the raging river I found myself asking questions like "How did the bus get there? Did it ford the raging river and climb the fifty foot bank, or did it perhaps come by the road? Why isn't this explorer following the bus tracks?" I left with the uncomfortable feeling that Chris McCandless was a pathetic figure, probably mentally ill, who ran off into the wilderness and died. My heart goes out to the McCandless family who have their loss portrayed for the masses but not before Penn has tarred their reputation and blamed them for Chris's problems (as nearly as I can tell from the internet accounts, the horrid parents are Penn's adaptation): as mental health professionals will tell you, mental illness is not the parent's fault.

Although the cinematography is great (the scenery is stunning) and much of the acting is first rate, my lasting impression of the movie is one of being in very poor taste. I feel like I owe the McCandless family an apology for having watched it.