Sean Penn directed this movie and takes the viewer on McCandless’ journey.

The McCandless story itself is a journey: one of self awareness, looking for oneself, finding oneself, and finding what really matters in life. There are countless guys out there who want to follow in McCandless’ footsteps but have not. He knew where to find himself and what really matters, and found some great things along the way.

Penn does a great job of filming in all the locations McCandless traveled during his two year journey. Beautifully filmed, Penn uses back and forth story telling to bring the past to the present to the ultimate end of the movie. Using slow motion filming as well as split screen, he creates a journey that is like watching a family video. The viewer gets to sit back and relive McCandless journey wishing they had met him along the way. The music by Eddie Vedder was a welcome addition to the movie as well.

Emile Hirsch plays McCandless as a journeyman always ready to tackle the next challenge and when things don’t go his way, Hirsch shows the emotional range needed to ask the viewer to be concerned for him as well. No wonder that after reading Krakauer’s book, many have traveled to the site in Alaska most known for McCandless’ journey, as this is a journey we all want to take.

The journey was welcome, the journey was needed, and Into the Wild brings everything to the viewer needed to live the journey with McCandless, and also prompts the viewer to ask if the journey is needed, and if it is, as it is, we can we have our journey.