Into the Wild

Into the Wild (2007)

2 corrected entries

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(2 votes)

Corrected entry: The cause of Chris's death in the film is attributed primarily to eating by accident the wrong plant and as a result, getting poisoned. While this is a theory, it is one which an autopsy showed no evidence of. The official cause of death was starvation.

Correction: This isn't a documentary of his life. It is a dramatization.

Rlvlk

Corrected entry: Immediately following the point where Chris's sister's narration mentions him as a child breaking into a neighbor's kitchen, and just before he is seen running with wild horses, there is a scene where he jumps from a cliff into a body of water. There is a wonderful underwater shot of him holding his breath, and in the background under his right arm you can see a diver's hand come into the shot. It looks like a woman's hand - it must have been one of the divers on the shoot.

Correction: The "visible hand" mentioned is actually the actor's right foot.

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Mistakes

Other mistake: The closing captions state that Chris McCandless' sister Carine flew "his" brother's ashes home, instead of "her" brother's ashes.

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Quotes

Christopher McCandless: You don't need human relationships to be happy, God has placed it all around us.

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Trivia

Trivia: While certain details of the story were altered for the confines of film, the characters Jan Burres played by Catherine Keener and Ronald Franz played by Hal Holbrook were both, according to research, entirely accurate. In fact when Jon Krakauer, the author of the book with the same name, contacted both people, they remembered Chris well and expressed great loss when learning of his death.

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Questions

Question: Chris didn't take any ID or such with him. It's OK that he could work with the country guys, but how could he get an "official" job in a fast food restaurant without any identification document or card?

Dangar

Answer: Chris probably knew what his Social Security Number was, and providing this could be enough to legitimately get him on the payroll. The people he worked for along the way could have been used as references. It is also possible that he was able to get a transcript and/or other documentation from Emory University; maybe a phone call to check if he graduated was more than enough. Christopher was also somewhat older and educated/ intelligent than others seeking such employment - in his early 20s compared to high school kids - which may have given him an advantage. There was probably a high job turnover rate among the employees, making it easier to get hired. Fast food restaurants tend to hire people from all walks of life, many who do not have much, if any, formal education or prior job experience; they often hire whoever applies.

KeyZOid

Not entirely disagreeing with your answer, but having worked at a university, I can say that someone cannot simply make a phone call to obtain a student's academic information, even their own. A 1974 U.S. federal law (FERPA) protects student privacy. Every school is different, but there is usually a process requiring identification, paperwork, and signatures to prove identity. As Chris had left all his I.D. behind, it would take some time for him to get any college information, particularly from a school in another state.

raywest ★

Answer: In real life, his sister Carine recovered his backpack, which had been taken and kept by a man immediately after Chris died. In it was his wallet, along with his SS card and other important documents.

Answer: One possibility is that it wasn't an "official" job and his boss was paying him 'under the table' (unreported employment). It is illegal, but it's more profitable for an employer to avoid reporting anything to the federal government, disregard regulations, not pay the usual employee taxes, benefits, etc.

raywest ★

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