Into the Wild...

[Chordata]

Originally Posted by jhiggy23

Well, yes and no. It depends on how you look at it. There is no question that Chris was a rich kid who gave it all away for his idealistic views. Whether that is seen as a waste and "stupid" is up to the person interpreting it. It's not as simple as that.

It's as simple as that to me. Here are some spoiler tags just in case.

[Show spoiler]He was stupid because he ate the wrong food and died. He was stupid because the way out was pretty close (generally speaking) to where he was staying. He was stupid because he waited too long to cross the river.

(And hopefully no one throws the whole "but he went to Emory!" thing in my face. I grew up there, and I know plenty of common sense dummies that went there. )

All that said, I read the book more than a decade ago on one of my own cross-country treks and found it riveting. As I stated before, something was lost in Penn's movie. Sort of felt empty, and I don't think it was intentional.