A Birder’s Guide to Everything Review

A Birder’s Guide to Everything (2013)

Cast: Ben Kingsley, Kodi Smit-McPhee, James Le Gros
Director: Rob Meyer
Country: USA
Genre: Comedy
Official Site: Here

Editor’s Notes: A Birder’s Guide to Everything is now out in limited release. 

Bird watching (or birding, as is it properly called) is an incredibly odd hobby. One waits around for a long time to catch a glimpse of something, identify it properly, then hurriedly snap a photo and pray that it’s not blurry. You have to know flying patterns, migration schedules, wing markings and so much more. As a child, my father had a book of birds and ways to identify them. I perused it occasional and even used it to identify the easiest of birds, but for the most part I just didn’t have the patience for such things. You can imagine my eyebrow raising when I learned that there was an entire movie based on the sport.

A Birder’s Guide to Everything is a movie that celebrates this sport while equally acknowledging its limited appeal.

Now playing in limited theatrical release and available on demand, A Birder’s Guide to Everything is a movie that celebrates this sport while equally acknowledging its limited appeal. By acknowledging the inherent nerdiness of the sport, the movie virtually acknowledges the fact that it will have a limited audience.

Kodi Smit-McPhee stars as David, your typical introverted, angst-riddled high school student. He’s part of his school’s birding club, which consists of his two friends Timmy (Alex Wolff) and Peter (Michael Chen). On the eve of his father’s marriage to his new girlfriend, David spots what he believes to be an extinct bird. Aided by the encouragement of the pretty Ellen (Katie Chang), the group set out to try and find the bird. They steal a pot-smoking relative’s car, essentially run away from home, and hope encounter some competition from other birders.

Sophomoric humor, puberty-fueled awkwardness, teenage angst, parental disputes, wistful indie music and everything else you’d expect from a coming-of-age comedy are present in Rob Meyer’s debut feature. However, so much of the film feels like a first draft. The jokes are bland, the characters shallowly written. The presence of the great Ben Kingsley is curious. It’s clear that on the page his character was very minor, but casting him accomplishes nothing but helping to sell the film.

Sophomoric humor, puberty-fueled awkwardness, teenage angst, parental disputes, wistful indie music and everything else you’d expect from a coming-of-age comedy are present…

While the movie plods wearily along for the entirety of its first two acts, the closing thirty minutes are shockingly different. The humor finally lands, David becomes an interesting protagonist, and there is a clear heart to the story. Special props should also be given to Katie Chang. Between her work in this movie and Sofia Coppola’s The Bling Ring, it’s clear that she has great talent. I’m excited to see where her career takes her. As great as its closing moments are, everything preceding it is too much of a boar to feel anything more than satisfaction that the movie finally became interesting.

The feeling of a first draft is a major problem, but throwing in too many characters holds back A Birder’s Guide to Everything from being something special. It’s clear that the heart of the movie is with the group of kids. By stripping away the excess characters and clichéd plot points, this movie could have been this year’s Kings of Summer. Instead, it takes too much from better movies in hopes that doing so well help it morph into a great movie. I imagine that those with a passion for birding and its intricacies will enjoy the film, but it’s going to be incredibly hard for this movie to find an audience beyond that. There are some great laughs and a clear heart buried somewhere beneath the cliché-riddled story. But it’s hard to focus on the moments that take flight when the movie spends too much time flapping wings in futility.

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Daniel Tucker

Director of Media & Staff Film Critic

I never knew how movies could make your imagination soar until I saw "Star Wars," I never realized how inspiring they could be until I saw "Rocky," and I never truly appreciated film until I saw "Goodfellas." Film has been a central part of my life as long as I can remember and it continues to mold who I am. My " movies to watch" list is miles longer than my "movies I have watched" list. My only regret is not having enough time to watch them all.

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