To give up everything, family, friends, possessions, money, structure, safety, is extremely brave. It may also be rife with hubris. Sean Penn's "Into the Wild," based on Jon Krakauer's retelling of the life and adventures of Christopher McCandless, examines those dual ideas, casting McCandless as an American wanderer as courageous as he is foolhardy.
In nonlinear bursts of storytelling, Penn's film follows McCandless from his college graduation to his exploration of personal and geographic frontiers. Turning his back on what is expected of him, McCandless moves west with little more than the clothes in his backpack. Eventually finding himself in Alaska, McCAndless finds the absolute freedom for which he searched and comes to the realization of that freedom's cost.
Penn…