McCandless of course encounters many people during his journeys, and they’re often played by familiar faces. At 140 minutes, the film might have benefited from shaving ten to fifteen minutes off its running time, but its rare you get this many characters who all feel like flesh-and-blood people, even in truth-based stories. Vince Vaughn shows up in a more down-to-earth, world-weary version of his usual persona. A hippie played by Catherine Keener becomes a kind of surrogate mother. Kristen Stewart plays a lonely teenager. The most emotional of these roles is played superbly by Hal Holbrook; playing a lonely old man, it is here that the movie most resembles a tragedy, as McCandless finds a truly loving guardian figure, and a deeper spiritual understanding of things, but refuses to give up on his ill-fated trip to Alaska.

Why did McCandless abandon every relationship he formed to go to Alaska, where he would, through unpreparedness and inexperience, starve to death? The same quality that makes him such a charming figure is also what makes him so infuriating: an immature, irrepressible sense of wanderlust. It’s a paradox that exists without a solution. He never once talked to his family after leaving them, even his sister Carine (played by Jena Malone, who occasionally narrates some family backstory), with whom he was quite close. And yet he’s also an inspiring figure, a guy who really did live life to the fullest but became a victim of the motivation that had otherwise served him so well.

I guess it boils down to this: over the summer, I read Jack Kerouac’s On the Road for the first time. Expecting to find myself imbued with the need to immediately take a road trip, I instead read the book as simply a curiosity, an outdated portrayal of vaguely unlikable characters with fuzzy goals and no motivations. Watching Into the Wild, I was fully aware of McCandless’s flaws but nonetheless felt a burning desire to sleep in the wild under the stars. This is a great film.

Movie Grade: A

Synopsis:

"Into the Wild" is based on a true story and the bestselling book by Jon Krakauer. After graduating from Emory University in 1992, top student and athlete Christopher McCandless (Hirsch) abandons his possessions, gave his entire $24,000 savings account to charity and hitchhiked to Alaska to live in the wilderness. Along the way, Christopher encounters a series of characters that shape his life.