Happiness is only real when shared, or so you will learn if you soak up INTO THE WILD, a 2 hr, 27 minute film starring Emile Hirsch, Marcia Gay Harden, Catherine Keener, Vince Vaughn, and William Hurt. The film is directed by actor Sean Penn, who does a wonderful adaptation of the best-selling book by John Krakauer, based on the true story of the final 2 years of Chris McCandless (February 12, 1968 August 1992).

It is Sean Penn's fourth film as a director, and the latest since 2001's The Pledge.

Twenty-two year old Emile Hirsch lost 41 pounds over the course of production to play Chris McCandless, a recent college grad from Emory University and lone spirit on an independent voyage. Early in the film, McCandless assumes the name Alexander Supertramp and donates his entire $24,000 life savings to Oxfam. He abandons his family and leaves on his journey. McCandless spends some time in South Dakota where he worked on a farm for a man named Wayne Westerberg, played by Vince Vaughn. He also spends time with a hippy couple named Jan and Bob in Slab City, California. Penn insisted on filming Into the Wild at the same locations visited by McCandless on his two year journey that brought him to Alaska and is filmed in 36 locations, including California, Arizona, Mexico, and South Dakota, and of course, Alaska. Emile Hirsch wore McCandless's own gold watch throughout the filming.

In the opening scene, a man is driving McCandless to the end of a road that will drop him into the Alaskan wilderness. The man is not an actor, but is actually the same person who dropped McCandless off in 1992. Why did young and brilliant Christopher McCandless trade a promising future-a college education and well to do background, for death by starvation in an abandoned bus in the woods of Alaska? McCandless discovers that he is not a hermit, and his epiphany that happiness is only real when shared tragically comes too late, when the river is too high to cross, and he becomes too weak to leave the abandoned bus that he made his home in the summer of 1992. He dies alone. At the end of the film, before the credits role, you will see a self-portrait of Chris McCandless in front of the bus he made his home for 112 days.

Into the Wild is Rated R for strong language, male and female nudity, violence, animal shooting, scenes of gutting and cooking wild animals, and starvation. The film features an excellent soundtrack comprised mostly of songs by Eddie Vedder, lead vocalist of Pearl Jam.

Into the Wild will be released on DVD on February 12, 2008.

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