A Birder's Guide to Everything

Since maybe 2011 (around the time The Big Year was released), it seems that the sport or birding (known informally and incorrectly by many people as "bird-watching") has been flirting with mainstream recognition. An abundance of films on the topic have been made within the last few years, and basic research on my behalf shows birding events occurring all over the world.

"Absolutely anyone can be a birder. Except for blind people, I suppose," Ben Kingsley's character in A Birder's Guide to Everything, the latest entry in "birding cinema," if there were such a thing. The film stars Kodi Smit-McPhee as David Portnoy, a fifteen-year-old who loves birding and believes he has spotted a Labrador Duck, a species which is believed to have gone extinct. He snaps a blurry but somewhat discernible picture that erects hope that the bird is migrating to a common migration point that, of course, requires a coming-of-age road trip with some buds. David brings his assorted, quirky band of pals such as the rambunctious Timmy (Alex Wolff of The Naked Brothers Band fame), the awkward and asthmatic Peter (Michael Chen), and the group's crush Ellen (Katie Chang), pretty much because she's a female as they drive down in a buddy's car he technically didn't consent to loaning. If you're wondering where Kingsley comes in, he plays a birding expert, adding another element of diversity to his long-successful acting career.

The reasons for chasing the bird are aplenty. A good part of the reason is the team's love and fondness for nature and the outdoors, but, according to Timmy, the benefit is that proving that the Labrador Duck is actually a living species will help them "fame-wise, money-wise, and vagina-wise." I almost forgot to mention A Birder's Guide to Everything's deals with some complex themes such as birding and the functionality of teenage hormones. The latter needs no explanation as to why I believe it's complex, but I believe birding is one of the most difficult sports around because of the fact that I think it would be hard or next to impossible to hold down a full-time job while being an avid birder. You have to be willing to travel all over the world in hopes of spotting a rare bird just for a few seconds, which will hopefully be another time for you to snap a clear picture of your subject.

The film is another one of those contemporary coming-of-age films that follow a group of eclectic characters as they try to understand their position in life and what they're destined for in the real world. This usually helps when they have unstable homelives and are fascinated with an arbitrary topic such as birding. I use a tone of sarcasm here because of the fact that while A Birder's Guide to Everything really doesn't do anything wrong, these contemporary coming-of-age films are only a hair away from becoming a cliché. While I scarcely tire of films centered around teens and their struggles, many of these films are beginning to mesh together, what with last year's The Kings of Summer and Mud having very similar premises, despite both being brilliant films. If these films continue to be made with the same kind of quirky formula, eventually they will lose their uniqueness and become as cliché as the films centered around the nerdy guy getting the gorgeous girl.

Even with this idea, A Birder's Guide to Everything is still a wholesome little exercise, smart, genial, and utilizes its PG-13 rating with plausibility. I always fear coming-of-age films with PG-13 ratings because that ultimately means sexual content and language are kept to a minimum, which is simply not reality in many teenagers' lives today. However, this film utilizes it conservatively but believably, not making the subject matter go out of its way to be offensive nor neuter itself to the realm of not being believable.

It's also easy to appreciate the work by Kodi Smit-McPhee along with Alex Wolff, who got his start on the Nickelodeon program The Naked Brothers Band (but the less said about that the better). Both Smit-McPhee and Wolff have true potential to go on to be strong, capable actors in a wide-variety of work. Smit-McPhee portrays listless but not helpless in a way that works in a way that doesn't feel like a pitiful cry for cheap sympathy, and Wolff's energy and controlled goofiness carry his character.

Then there's the fact that A Birder's Guide to Everything effectively illustrates how one man's passion is another man's bewilderment, seeing as David's father (James Le Gros) has no concept nor practical knowledge to how his son's fervent love for birding works. It's hardly uncommon for parents to be struggling at trying to identify their children's hobbies, especially in the tumultuous world we live in today, where the likes and dislikes of kids grow increasingly peculiar thanks to things like the internet. Co-writer/director Rob Meyer and Luke Matheny illustrate this by telling it like it is; David's father has no idea (or real interest) in what his son likes.

A Birder's Guide to Everything is often just as odd as its title, but its warmness, depiction of an offbeat hobby, its quirky but realistic line of characters, and instances that beautifully detail birding and teen hormones are filled with all the tenderness and heart needed to make a project like this succeed as a whole.

Starring: Kodi Smit-McPhee, Alex Wolff, Michael Chen, Katie Chang, James Le Gros, and Ben Kingsley. Directed by: Rob Meyer.

David Portnoy (Kodi Smit-McPhee) is a big birder and is even in the Young Bird Society in his school. His mother is dead. His father Donald Portnoy (James Le Gros) is getting married to Juliana Santos (Daniela Lavender). His best friend girl-obsessed talkative Timmy Barsky (Alex Wolff) is also in the YBS. Then David thinks that he saw an extinct duck. Also Ben Kingsley plays expert birder Lawrence Konrad. The group goes in search of the duck with the help of student photographer Ellen Reeves (Katie Chang).

This is sorta like 'Stand by Me' with bird watching for awhile. It worked better as such. It pains me to say this but the movie is better off without Ben Kingsley in the second half. There is a reasonable coming of age movie. It's nothing special or original but it's somewhat cute. I was hoping it could keep going on that trail. The arrival of Kingsley broke up the group's chemistry. It's still a cute little movie. Kodi does a great job as the geeky lead. The kids are very natural. I wish the movie kept with just the four kids in the woods.

This is a pleasant enough story, with apparently intelligent writing about birds and about life as teenagers. Alex Wolff is the standout actor here, if you don't count Sir Ben Kingsley. More about him later. But Timmy is a great character. And Katie Chang makes quite a contribution also. Ellen has a nice personality and is smart, but she has had trouble making friends because she moves a lot.

Kodi Smit-McPhee does a good job of being an ordinary kid, and is most effective when David has to show grief.

Ben Kingsley makes the most of what turns out to be a small role, but his first scene is not the only one. He really shows his ability later. This isn't the type of movie you would expect him to be in, but his presence adds to the movie.

The scenery is great too when the actual bird watching takes place.

Is this is good clean family film? Not quite. There is some sex talk and some words make it to broadcast TV that younger kids shouldn't hear, though others have multiple meanings and must therefore be all right. When I saw this, fairly often, the sound went out and a character's mouth was blurred. One word in particular was actually used twice (though I heard a P once before the rest of the word was bleeped), once in subtitles when the guys were speaking Latin, and not to refer to a cat. But I don't think the revelation that Donald Trump used the word in a more vulgar way had any influence on the censors. I think they did their job long before the news about the Donald.

I didn't care for most of the music (but of course this a film for teens), but the guys do like classical music, and several scenes involving the grownups, including the wedding, had jazz that would have fit perfectly in the great Woody Allen movie set in 1940 that I saw the same weekend I saw this.

It's a worthy effort.

"A Birder's Guide to Everything" is an unassuming little charmer about a quartet of teenaged ornithologists who go in pursuit of a duck long believed to be extinct by experts in such matters. But, as the title itself suggests, "birding" is about a whole lot more than just seeking out and categorizing rare birds; it's about friendship, camaraderie, first love, learning to let go and growing up.

Kodi Smit-McPhee plays David Portnoy, a high school boy who's having trouble coming to terms with the death of his beloved mother a year-and- a-half ago, a renowned ornithologist herself who instilled an intense love for birds in her son that he carries with him to this very day. His grieving process is not being helped by the fact that his father (James Le Gros) is slated to marry the nurse (Daniela Lavender) who took care of his mother in her dying days. David rebels in the only way a non-troublemaking, bird-obsessed boy really can - by piling into a "borrowed" car with his equally bird-obsessed buddies and going off through the woods of Upstate New York to prove the world wrong about that aforementioned duck.

Written by Luke Matheny and Rob Meyer and directed by Meyer, "A Birder's Guide to Everything" is filled with humor, warmth, and winning performances by Alex Wolff and Michael Chen as David's lifelong pals, as well as Katie Chang as the initially skeptical but sufficiently open- minded fellow student who joins the boys in their quest. Ben Kingley also gets in on the fun as a professional ornithologist who worked with David's mother and has a few words of wisdom to impart to the mourning lad on the eve of his dad's nuptials.

Along with some dazzling scenery, "A Birder's Guide to Everything" manages to drive home a few basic truths - like it really is okay to march to the beat of your own drum - with its deceptively simple tale of a boy and his birds.

"I think I may have found an extinct duck." David Portnoy (Smit-Mcphee) is your typical high school bird watcher. He spends all his free time outside looking for any type of bird he can find which also keeps him away from his dad's new fiancé who he doesn't approve of. While out one day he thinks he spots an extinct species of duck. When him and his friends take the picture to famous birder Lawrence Konrad (Kingsley) they become more excited when he doesn't disagree with the findings. They decide to take a weekend trip to where they think the duck went to verify what they found, the same weekend as his father's wedding. Going into this I had the same reaction 90% of people will have, a movie about bird watching...super fun. Even though I liked The Big Year I still wasn't all that excited about watching this. Once again though I ended up liking this more then I expected to. The movie was more of a coming of age movie then another Big Year type movie. I was surprised with how much I liked this and I do recommend this. Overall, a mix of Kings Of Summer, Way Way Back and Sasquatch Gang with a dash of Napoleon Dynamite . I give this a B+.