DIRECTOR: Sean Penn

CAST: Emile Hirsch, Marcia Gay Harden, William Hurt, Jena Malone, Catherine Keener, Brian Dierker, Vince Vaughn, Kristen Stewart, Hal Holbrook

REVIEW:

The life of Christopher McCandless provokes some of the same emotions as that of Timothy Treadwell, chronicled in Werner Herzog’s Grizzly Man, both romantic, naive—some would say foolish—idealists who died as they lived, in the wilderness, and who depending on who you ask are either admirable figures or recklessly committing inadvertent suicide (or a little of both).  Adapting from Jon Krakauer’s book, itself a combination of first-hand written fragments from McCandless’ own diary and a compilation of second-hand accounts from those whose lives he drifted in and out of along the way, actor-director Sean Penn in his fourth outing behind the camera has brought McCandless’ story to the screen in docudrama fashion interweaving two genres: the road trip, and man versus nature. Continue reading →