A movie about life, emotions, frustrations, love, sentiments, family, survival. In totality, an obvious winner of the hearts of people worldwide. After graduating from Emory University, top student and athlete Christopher McCandless abandons his possessions, gives his entire life savings $24,000 account to a charity and starts his journey to Alaska to live in the wilderness. Starring Emily Hirsh in the Lead role, this movie is all about Christopher's Journey far away from his frustrations and family to Alaska. Along the way, Christopher encounters a series of characters that shape his life.
CAST:
- Emile Hirsch as Christopher McCandless / "Alexander Supertramp"
- Marcia Gay Harden as Billie McCandless
- William Hurt as Walt McCandless
- Jena Malone as Carine McCandless
- Catherine Keener as Jan Burres
- Brian H. Dierker as Rainey
- Vince Vaughn as Wayne Westerberg
- Zach Galifianakis as Kevin
- Kristen Stewart as Tracy Tatro
- Hal Holbrook as Ron Franz
- Thure Lindhardt as Mads
- Signe Egholm Olsen as Sonja
- Jim Gallien as Himself
- Leonard Knight as Himself
Plot
In 1990, Christopher McCandless (Emile Hirsch), a college graduate from Emory University, rejects a
materialist, conventional life, and his parents Walt (William Hurt) and Billie McCandless (Marcia Gay Harden), whom McCandless perceives as having betrayed him by entrapping him in a future of traditional lifestyle. It is shown that the family is rich but unloving. McCandless destroys all of his credit cards and identification documents, donates $24,000 (nearly his entire savings) to Oxfam, and sets out on a cross-country drive in his well-used but reliable Datsun toward his ultimate goal: Alaska, to experience life in the wilderness. However, McCandless does not tell his family nor his sister Carine (Jena Malone) what he is doing or where he is going and does not communicate with them thereafter, leaving them to become increasingly anxious and eventually desperate.
Along the way his automobile is caught in a flash flood and he abandons it to hitchhike instead, after burning what remains of his dwindling cash supply at the side of Lake Mead, Arizona. He then assumes a new name: Alexander Supertramp. Along his travels, he encounters a hippie couple, Jan Burres (Catherine Keener) and Rainey (Brian H. Dierker), with whom he forms a friendship. As McCandless continues his travels, he decides to work for a contract harvesting company owned by Wayne Westerberg (Vince Vaughn). However he is forced to leave after Westerberg is arrested for satellite piracy. McCandless then travels to the Colorado River and, though he is told by park rangers that he may not kayak down the river without a license, he ignores their warnings and paddles downriver, eventually all the way into Mexico. There his kayak is lost in a sandstorm, and he crosses back into the United States on foot. Unable to easily hitchhike, he starts traveling via freight train to Los Angeles. Not long after arriving, however, he starts feeling "corrupted" by modern civilization and decides to leave. Later, McCandless is forced to switch his traveling method back to hitchhiking after he is beaten brutally by a railroad bull.
McCandless then arrives at a hippie commune, Slab City, and encounters Jan and Rainey again. At the commune, he meets Tracy Tatro (Kristen Stewart), a teenage girl who is attracted to McCandless and flirts with him. After some time, McCandless decides to continue heading for Alaska, much to everyone's sadness. McCandless then encounters a retired man, Ron Franz (Hal Holbrook), in Salton City, California, who recounts the story of the loss of his family during his service in WW2. He now occupies his time in a workshop as an amateur leather worker. He teaches McCandless the art, resulting in the production of a belt summarising his travels, and ending in a letter "N" which he explains means "north", i.e. Alaska. After spending several months with Franz, McCandless decides to leave for Alaska and Franz takes him the first 100 miles and gives him camp and travel gear. On parting Franz offers to adopt McCandless as his grandchild, but McCandless tells him that they should discuss this after McCandless returns from Alaska, and Franz emotionally watches him depart.
Nearly two years after leaving his family, McCandless crosses a stream in a remote area of Alaska and sets up camp in an abandoned Fairbanks Transit bus which he encounters. Initially McCandless is exhilarated by the isolation, the beauty of nature around and the thrill of living off the land as the spring thaw arrives. He hunts wild animals with a .22 rifle, reads books, and keeps a diary of his thoughts. At first he is willing to make sacrifices, sparing the life of a female moose when he spots her offspring. However life becomes harder and he becomes less discerning; his supplies start to run out and although he kills a moose he does not know the correct process for smoking the meat; as a result it is all spoiled and infested with flies and maggots (on his journey he was specifically warned of this problem). He realizes that nature is also harsh and uncaring. Ultimately on his journey of self-discovery, he concludes that true happiness can only be found when shared, and in the pain of realization seeks to return from the wild to his friends and family.
However, to his despair, McCandless finds that the stream which he crossed in the snow has become wide, deep, and violent due to the thaw, and he cannot return. He is forced to return to the bus-shelter, but now as a prisoner. Having previously insisted on being self-sufficient he is no longer in control of his fate and can only hope for help from the outside.As his supplies run out, he is forced to gather and eat roots and plants. He has a book to help him to distinguish edible from inedible, but he confuses similar plants and becomes violently ill as a result. His book informs him that his mistake will cause him "starvation and death". He then slowly and painfully starves. In his final hours, he continues to document his process of self-realization and accepts his fate, as he imagines his friends and family for a final time, and writes a farewell to the world.
The epilogue states that two weeks after his death his body is found by moose hunters. The movie ends with a picture of him, found undeveloped in his camera from before he died (depicting an identical scene towards the end of the film). The epilogue also states that his sister carried his ashes from Alaska to the eastern seaboard by plane in her backpack.
Written by: Jon Krakauer
Directed and Screenplay by: Sean Penn
Watch the Trailer
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