Into the wild

Christopher J. McCandless (February 12, 1968 – August 1992) was an American wanderer who died near Denali National Park after hiking alone into the Alaskan wilderness with little food or equipment. Author Jon Krakauer wrote a book about his life, Into the Wild, published in 1996, which was adapted into a 2007 film directed by Sean Penn, Into the Wild, with Emile Hirsch as McCandless.

I am not sure what I feel about this film. On the one hand, it is heartbreakingly sad because it is a true story; on another...there is something that bugs me about it.
Film is well made, atmospheric and the soundtrack gives away really beautiful background to the whole thing.
I hated the little bastard from the start. The fucked up moral high ground he held with total disregard to his parents and their feelings as well as that of his sister and possibly his friends, which are not shown in the film. So his parents had problems, so they fought, so his father had a son he never saw...people get raped, beaten, abused, tortured, there has to exist a responsibility for one’s actions regardless of the rich life’s pageant you were born into.
I enjoyed the film not for the fact that this boy travelled beautiful places, ridding himself of the material possessions and trappings that brings, preaching to everyone about that higher motive, but for the relationships he had with people along the way, relationships that exhibited love and kindness and stability and beauty that no fucking Alaskan sunset in a rusty fucking bus can give you.
So he realises, when he finds out he is dying, (no surprises there as no selfish idiot ever realises before that moment) that to be truly happy you need to be with someone to rejoice with, then we watch him write that poignantly in his Jack London book, his bible, big fucking deal...I think someone his age should have applied a thought or two before he caused his parents months of mental torture. I mean, go live like a bum, why not just write your parents a letter saying sorry I had to do it, but I am fine, unless you are a cruel, immature and self centered sod.
And what is it with pretending that he is called something he is not? I mean, if you truly believe that your fucking life is pointless and your parents and your legacy is a lie and it is worthless, why write your real name before you die so that you can be identified? Stay Alexander Supertramp...oh but when you are dying it might not look so fucking cool to be pretending.

This, to me, was a film about idealistic, selfish and immature spoilt brat that thought he was changing the universe by giving his scholarship to Oxfam. It was probably spent on salaries for those annoying people on the street that never sign anyone anyway and he lost his life in the process, learning one thing, the thing he could have learnt by exploring into himself just a bit.
On the other hand...I found much beauty and insight in his relationships along the way, the way he bonded with people he met, even if he felt that was worthless, which made me realise I have been stuck in my head far too long and need to connect with my friends again a bit more. Also, this is a first time I watched a true story where someone dies that inspired so much anger in me rather than empathy. The only empathy I feel is for his parents and his sister and the people that loved him along the way.
Fuck Alaska. I lost the wish to go there now.