My Review of "Into The Wild"

Into The Wild came out back in 2007 and at the time I guess I was a little too immature to appreciate such a film. I never got to see until now. With all of the craziness happening in 2020 it would be interesting to see someone deliberately setting out to live by themselves in the wild. So I thought it would be an interesting film to watch and I wasn't wrong.

This movie starts off with this young guy's adventure to Alaska where he finds this abandoned bus in the middle of nowhere. At this point I thought it was going to be some sort of horror movie because usually when there's an a bus or vehicle there's someone living there. Lucky for the main character Chris aka Alex there's no one around. It looks like he's finally reached his goal and then we have this huge flashback.

The flashback goes back about 2 years before he finds the bus and Chris is just graduating from University. I think his parents are proud of him but you can't really tell because they're pretty stoic characters. They have this dinner afterwards and it's starting to be apparent that his parents are pretty well off.

They want to buy Chris a brand new car and this brings up an argument. This is something that seems kind of weird because a kid his age would normally be thrilled to be getting a new car instead of driving a jalopy of a car. Chris is obviously different. He's offended because he thinks that his jalopy of a car embarrasses his parents and that's the true reason for their generous offer. In fact he seems to be very standoffish with his parents. He's highly paranoid of their true intentions of everything they're doing.

At this point I start wondering what the heck did these parents do to this kid for him to be like this. Later on in the movie they start to reveal more and more about his parents. Most of it is narrated by his sister. He's probably been closest with his sister so he confided with her the most before he goes on this crazy journey.

I guess Chris didn't want anything to do with material possessions and wanted to live off the land. So he donated his life savings of $24,000 to charity and set off on his mysterious journey with nothing but the clothes on his back and his beat up car. He doesn't tell anyone where he's going not even his sister.

On his grand journey he meets a bunch of people who he learns new skills and experiences. It's really interesting because he's going all the west coast of America and meets some really fascinating people. They give him their live stories and experiences for his hand in help.

They talk a lot of about different relationships that people can have but Chris isn't really about getting into relationships with people. He cherishes the time that he has with these individuals but in his heart he believes that life can be enjoyed without connection with people. There's joy in everything we do and see. Chris is trying to absorb absolutely everything.

During his interactions with everyone he's reminded of his family in some way. As the story of his past starts to be revealed we learn why he's really on this crazy journey. He has to decide whether the journey is worth continuing or is there a chance that he can come back to his old life.

I'm sure a lot of us have thought of going on adventures such as this to learn more about ourselves. As we interact with more people and learn of new things we learn what we like and what we don't like. In everything we do we have to be honest with ourselves in the true reason why we're doing things. One of the biggest lessons that are learned in this story the power of forgiveness. I found that the story wasn't too heavy handed in it's approach to give it's subtle messages to the audience.

The only problem I had with the movie was that there was a lot of jumping in time that may be a little disorienting. A lot of the scenes are very close in timeline with one another so it can be a little confusing at times. It's pretty easy to follow what's trying to be conveyed but time jumps can make your head spin a little. Even a little text at the bottom could help out a little to let us know what time they're talking about.

Overall, I thought it was a nice exploration of Chris' character. I thought it was a fictional story up until the end when it's revealed that this was based on a true story. These stories always throw me off because they always seem to be so far fetched and then I realize someone actually did these things. I have to give this movie a 7 out of 10. I thought it was a great watch but I don't think I would want to watch this movie again. The one viewing was very appreciated though.