Into the Wild

            Christopher McCandless (Emile Hirsch, Emperor’s Club) has just graduated from Emery University. He’s got 24,000$ in the bank, and it looks probable he’ll be headed to Harvard Law ina  brand new car thanks to his parents. Everything seems to be going his way. But the McCandless mentality has been altered by overexposure to his own culture. ‘

As his sister (Jenna Malone, Donnie Darko) observes in narrative, the weight of the world broke the frail strings knit by his parent’s vapid, dysfunctional materialistic sensibilities. Christopher cannot be a slave to money like his parents, he cannot be a slave to appearances like his fellow students. He will not let himself settle for anything less than truth, beauty, and freedom.

His pursuit of happiness begins at age 21 when his car is mired in a flash flood while driving across New Mexico. In the morning, he puts all he thinks he’ll need into a backpack, straps on his hiking boots, burns the last $500 in his wallet, and hits the open road, hitching, hiking, and doing what he needs to in order to truly live.

His adventures lead him all over the world, with only clothing, trust, and a few select books to read as he pursues honest free happiness. He also needs a new name, and so he assumes the identity of Alexander Supertramp. He tramps with the best of them, seeking what he can only imagine. He eventually lands in Alaska, with a .22 rifle, a box of ammo, a weeks rations and winter gear, and marches into the wilderness.

What Christopher/Alexander discovers in his travels is the lesson and moral of the story. There is so much more to life than adventures, because life is meant to be shared. It is the idea of fellowship which escapes him, though he makes friends easily, he flees it all trying to escape the sins of his father…and finds only his death. 2. Brilliant. Amazing. So Sad.Yet Beautiful. And True.