A Birder's Guide to Everything

Screen Media Films | Release Date: March 21, 2014

5.6	USER SCORE Mixed or average reviews based on 14 Ratings

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ClariseSamuelsSep 15, 2014

Although this movie is ostensibly about birdwatching, the fanatical enthusiasm for this hobby is actually the background for coming-of-age, dealing with grief, and relationships between parents and teenagers. David Portnoy, a 15-year-oldAlthough this movie is ostensibly about birdwatching, the fanatical enthusiasm for this hobby is actually the background for coming-of-age, dealing with grief, and relationships between parents and teenagers. David Portnoy, a 15-year-old played by Kodi Smit-McPhee, is still coping with the death of his mother and the fact that only 1.5 years after the tragedy, his father (James Le Gros) is marrying the attractive nurse (Daniela Lavender) who tended to his mother in her dying days. David's chief consolation for his loneliness and grief are his two best friends (Michael Chen and Alex Wolff) at school, with whom he has formed the school's birdwatching society—referred to as “birding” only if one is truly serious and devoted to the cause.

Instead of being comic-book geeks or computer nerds, this birding society of three, which barely qualifies them for club status at their high school, is obsessed with collecting knowledge and sightings of every kind of bird species they can possibly identify in their geographical area. They are fans and devotees of a famous ornithologist who lives nearby and has published books on the subject, Dr. Konrad (eccentrically played by Ben Kingsley). When the club meets at the school library, despite their inability to attract and hold new club members, they amusingly conform to Robert's Rules of Order even if the Chair is obliged to say, “The Chair recognizes himself.” Their goal is to list and recognize countless bird species, and if possible, to sight endangered species. The real prize is the almost non-existent chance of sighting a bird that is supposed to be extinct, which David is sure he has one day when a strangely colored duck lands in the road in front of his bicycle.

The threesome set out to find the invaluable duck, which they hope has migrated to the nearest wildlife refuge area, and in so doing, David escapes his father's house the weekend before the wedding. The boy is haunted by memories of his deceased mother, an expert birder who taught him her skills, and is also awkwardly establishing tentative romantic relations with his first girlfriend (Katie Chang). His disappointment in his father's decision to re-marry so soon has put a pronounced strain on their relationship.

Although lacking the sentimentality and misty-eyed idealism of say, The Summer of '42, this coming-of-age story has a certain charm, as the scholarly pursuit of birdwatching by teenagers who have all the time in the world to perfect their art provides an unusual and interesting twist.… Expand