Into the Wild (2007)

Alternating between being an purposeful and thought provoking meditation on society's many ills, and being agenda driven snobbish tripe, this is a movie that's extremely difficult to love, but easy to admire. It's clear that a lot of passion and dedication went into the making of this film, but despite its real-life trappings, much of it comes off as a bit too idealistic. Director Sean Penn paints his scenery and characters in fairly clear black and white: Nature and hippies = Good. Cities and people with jobs = Bad. This is absolutely backed up by the score by Eddie Vedder, with folk tunes about wilderness and the supposed joys of being penniless. There's certainly merit to the thinking, but as it's portrayed here it comes off as too simplistic. On the other hand, Emile Hirsch puts on an amazing performance as the brash, and very real, Christopher McCandless. Likewise, the location scouts did an outstanding job of finding gorgeous locales to set the film in. While the central conceits of the film are a bit too basic, the excellent settings and great acting make this an interesting example of what happens when idealism crashes head-on with reality.

7 out of 10.