Movie review: "Into The Wild" (2007)

This is the true-ish story of Christopher McCandless, who decides in 1990, after a middle-class upbringing and uni education, that society isn't his bag, baby. So he donates his bank balance to charity and racks off without telling his family where he's bound – possibly 'cos he has no idea himself.

Sean Penn's film follows McCandless – who destroys all of his ID and rechristens himself Alexander Supertramp – as he drives (until his Datsun's totalled in a freak flood), hitches and hikes through wild America, kayaks sections of the Colorado River and learns the hard way not to hop freight trains. Like a quality nature doco, it's visually entrancing.

Drifting from camp site to no-questions-asked job to camp site, "Alex" comes to see remote Alaska as a nirvana where, surviving alone for an extended period, he'll be able to make peace with his soul. While his willpower and endurance in pursuing and, to a certain extent, achieving this goal can only be admired, he severs emotional connections with a strange, deluded selfishness.

Emile Hirsch nails the title role of the literature-fuelled young idealist desperate to do no harm but ultimately hurting anyone who gets close. Marcia Gay Harden and William Hurt are the far-from-model parents left devastated by their son's disappearance. Jena Malone's the sister who knew him best...and not at all. Also excellent are Hal Holbrook as the ageing mentor who sees the tragedy in Alex, Brian Dierker and Catherine Keener as the hippies who offer him a (mobile) home, and Kristen Stewart as the pretty teen who wishes their brief relationship could be more than platonic.

Props as well to Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder, whose songs make "Into The Wild" an even more powerful experience.

Final word: A wander in the wilderness, with all the harsh beauty, soul-stirring, danger and distress that entails.

[Australian cinema release date: November 29]