Review of Into the Wild (2007) by Jamesr. — 24 Feb 2008

I read this book 10 years ago during my senior semester of college. It validated a lot of feelings I was having at the time that are impossible to examine in a film. Yet Penn's film still succeeds in telling Chris' story uniquely and beautifully IF you can avoid the basic human need to judge a person living life in ways personally hard to imagine or fully understand.

I'm impressed with Penn's screenplay, including the scrolling passages from Chris' journal and the way Penn avoids a strictly linear telling, more in line with the way the book's author (Krakauer) pieced the story together during several years of research.

There were a few lines of dialogue that bothered me ("If you want something, reach out and grab it!" for example), but otherwise I can't praise Penn enough for his vision here.