Sean Penn, like Jon Krakauer, upon whose book the movie is based, set out to answer why Christopher McCandless, a middle class college graduate from the East Coast felt the need to travel around the country ultimately starving to death in the wilds of Alaska. The movie was unsuccessful, though, unless the answer was McCandless was selfish, or possibly mentally ill. Here's an obligatory mention of Eddie Vedder's soundtrack with an obligatory use of the adjective "haunting."