Among those involved with the picture, expectations are high, and many people feel changed by the experience.

WESTERBERG: [Sometimes I think] if I hadn't identified his body in Alaska, he probably would have been buried a John Doe. And then there never would have been any of this. It's really strange. A lot of time has passed. There's been so much publicity, and I think it changes the whole concept of grief. I've just gotten... immune to the whole thing.

PENN: I do have hopes of what people are gonna take away from this movie, but not because I'm going to reveal those hopes in an article. I think it's there. I will say this: I hope people get out of the movie what I got out of reading the story the first time I came across it.

CARINE: Being on the set was kind of comical; it was like this big machine. I could hear Chris in my head saying, "This is just nuts." But I didn't really care about the behind-the-scenes. When we worked on the final edits of the narrative, that's what my focus was on. Those are my words about my brother. It's about Chris, but he's not here to speak. The last version I saw, I had about 100 pounds come off my shoulders.

BILLIE: Chris did not understand or agree with the way the world was going, and he wanted to change it. He wanted to change it since the beginning of high school.

WALT: He wanted to change it as a little boy.

BILLIE: He also understood that to change things you needed to understand them. And he wanted to learn about life from the ground up. And that was what he set out to do. And unfortunately he didn't make it. But I don't know—look at all that's happened because of him. I want this movie to do what the book did: grip people in the heart. Make people think. Bring people and families together. It's a lesson.