On the eve of his estranged father's (James LeGros) re-marriage, teenage birding devotee David Portnoy (Australia's Kodi Smit-McPhee) thinks he's made a significant discovery: the existence of the apparently extinct North American Labrador duck. Now after telling his mates and fellow school birding club members Timmy (Alex Wolff) and Peter (Michael Chen), David suggests they go on a hiking trip into the local wilderness to try to find it. Despite Timmy's and Peter's initial skepticism, the threesome set off on their journey (with the blessing of Ben Kingsley as teacher Lawrence Konrad) but of course, in the best coming-of-age movie tradition, alongside birds they also come to confront buried conflicts and home truths, particularly when female company surfaces in the form of classmates Ellen (Katie Chang) and Evelyn (Zandi Holup).
On paper this sounded thoroughly unappealing to me as a 31-year-old with virtually no interest in ornithology, but it charmed my socks off. With that said, you obviously needn't be a birder to enjoy it. Director Rob Meyer adapted it from his earlier short film Aquarium, and he co-wrote the screenplay with Luke Matheny, who won a 2010 Oscar for his own short God of Love, and despite its premise there's ultimately nothing esoteric, and little cliched, about A Birder's Guide to Everything. Meyer and Matheny flesh this narrative out with conscious clarity and patience, and Meyer visualises and paces it with intimacy, mounting energy and a drive to evoke the featured natural landscapes. He also elicits equally natural, and dedicated, performances from all his young cast (although Kingsley could've played his role in a coma), and invokes rich cinematography and scoring to further enhance the effect.
A Birder's Guide to Everything is like Stand by Me meets Into the Wild, but just on its own merits, it easily takes flight.
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