Into the Wild Reviewed by an Autist

I sat down to watch Into the Wild, and I must say I felt emotional revisiting one of my favorite adventure movies I've ever seen. Into the Wild is an adventure/biography film based on the book of the same title by Jon Krakauer about the true story of Christopher McCandless abandoning society and his material possessions like money, and then he hitchhiked off the land and eventually lived off the land in the Alaskan bush.

Christopher was living his earlier life with his wealthy family that seemed to be very stable on the outside. But behind closed doors, his family life was chaos. Chris was graduating from high school when he discovered a family secret that made him disillusioned enough to give up on society and live off the grid. He does so after graduating college and heading west in his Datsun before he couldn't drive it anymore and started hitchhiking across America and Mexico after burning his money.

Along his journey, he went by Alexander Supertramp and encountered some new people who became his friends. He had hitchhiked with his favorite books, as well as the books that informed him of flora he could eat. After two years of hitchhiking around mainland America, he was ready to live off the grid in Alaska to find his true self. Due to the unforgiving difficulty of the bush and lack of sufficient preparedness, Chris met his demise and died of starvation. His death took the cake for the saddest real-life and movie death I've ever seen; that was enough to make me cry out tears for him.

I loved the emotional aspect of this movie when it came to a coming-of-age moment for Chris finding himself when he detached from society to live in ultimate freedom. I was compelled by the message of being about freedom and solitude. The movie made me wish that Chris had survived and lived long enough to tell us his side of the story to compel us even more. I want to commend Emile Hirsch for playing Chris McCandless; he deserved an Oscar for his acting.

Overall, Into the Wild was an inspirational movie about finding your freedom but still being prepared for the risks coming with it. I also want to mention that happiness is indeed more real when shared with others than your own. My regret is not watching this amazing movie when I was eighteen. That would've made a bigger impact for me to find my happiness that much sooner. I give this movie a 9.6 out of 10.