Bridget Nordquist

Here it is, only November and I’m already anticipating the excitement of the Oscar Awards, which don’t even take place until late February. Movies like 3:10 to Yuma and Michael Clayton have piqued the interest of critics and Oscar predictors alike. Additionally, the film Into the Wild is also causing award-show buzz and, as I see it, for good reason.

Into the Wild adapts the Jon Krakauer book of the same name. Both the film and the book recount the strange real-life tale of Christopher McCandless. McCandless grew up in a wealthy family and later graduated with honors from Emory University in the early 90’s. However, due to problems with his family and what he saw as the excesses of society, McCandless abandoned his comfortable life and took to the road. He donated away his $24,000 life savings and assumed the name “Alexander Supertramp.” Subsequently, he hitchhiked across the U.S., making stops in California, Mexico and, interestingly, South Dakota. Two years after he started his adventure, McCandless ended up in the Alaskan wilderness where he lived for months in a bus but then died a mysterious death, possibly due to starvation.

The story sounds interesting enough, but this movie flourishes for many more reasons than that. The film was directed by Sean Penn and stars an able cast, including Emile Hirsch, Vince Vaughn, Marcia Gay Harden, and Catherine Keener. Penn and Hirsch (as McCandless) together do an amazing job of portraying the hauntingly emotional story of this lost soul who really didn’t know what he was fighting against. While Into the Wild is roughly 2