Into the Wild Details

[Highly rated reviewer]

rubbish

actually had to turn the film off half way through it was that bad

Not So Wild

Into The Wild skirts interesting questions about personal freedom, nature and society. Ultimately though it is a two dimensional portrait of an anti-hero rather than a complex character study. The film over reaches as Sean Penn points his camera at the wilderness but never really engages with it. The screenplay is heavy handed and sentimental, in particular the sister's narration which is cloyingly introspective and irritating. What might have seemed a profound personal journey simply becomes an exercise in spoilt teenage angst. The precocious central protagonists wouldn't be out of place in an episode of Dawson's Creek, which is disturbing, given the fact that this film is a biopic adapted from a more measured and eloquent novel.