Sean Penn is best known for the intense, unsympathetic and no-nonsense characters he plays in movies. Here, however, he swapped the actor's mask for the pen and came through with flying colors.

Into the Wild (based on a 1996 novel of the same name), for which he wrote the screenplay and directed, is far from the run-of-the-mill, cheesy, big-budget stuff Hollywood seems to churn out far more often than is palatable to the audience.

The movie depicts the adventures of Christopher McCandless (expertly played by Emile Hirsch), a top student at Emory University and an athlete who decides to give it all up and hitchhike to Alaska to live in the wild. He encounters several unique people who change his life before he faces the dangers of wilderness.

The story begins with an unhappy family, proceeds through a series of encounters with the lonely and the lost, and ends in a senseless, premature death.

But though the film's structure may be tragic, its spirit is anything but. It is infused with an expansive, almost giddy sense of possibility, and it communicates a pure, unaffected delight in open spaces, fresh air and bright sunshine.

But if the story is so morose, why watch it? Well, there is the movie's expert and fresh handling of the mature subject of self-discovery and the message it conveys.

The excellent and restrained performances, not only by Emile Hirsch but the entire ensemble support cast, including the ever-reliable Vince Vaughn (playing a rowdy grain dealer), Kristen Stewart (a teenager with a crush on McCandless), Marcia Gay Harden and William Hurt (McCandless' parents), are well worth your time.

And finally, watch it for the beautiful cinematography and magnificent camerawork, expertly capturing the stark and raw beauty of Alaska.

There are really no downsides to this movie, unless you are so used to How to Lose A Guy in 10 Days and its cousins that you can't handle serious cinema. Into the Wild is a movie about the desire for freedom that feels itself like the fulfillment of that desire.