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IMDbPro

A Birder's Guide to Everything

  • 2013
  • PG-13
  • 1h 26m
IMDb RATING
6.2/10
2.5K
YOUR RATING
Ben Kingsley, Alex Wolff, Kodi Smit-McPhee, and Katie Chang in A Birder's Guide to Everything (2013)
David Portnoy (Kodi Smit-McPhee), a 15-year-old birding fanatic, makes an unbelievable discovery: he might have taken a photo of a supposedly extinct duck that hasn’t been seen in North America since 1878.  Upon the counsel of the Young Birders Society, David's high school birding club, he takes his finding to a legendary ornithologist, Dr. Konrad (Academy Award-winner Ben Kingsley) to solidify the claim.  With his original photo too blurry to confirm bird's identity, Konrad recommends they find the duck again before it migrates in order to get a better account of this lazarus species, but this time using a quality camera.

David and his ragtag birding crew (Alex Wolff, Michael Chen) embark on an epic road trip to solidify their place in birding history - and with girls.  Enter Ellen (Katie Chang), who is in possession of the quality camera they seek and tags along under one stipulation: she takes the first photo of the rare duck.  As they encounter other birders and a certain doctor who just might want to steal their claim, what initially seemed like fun exercise in birding could turn into a journey of discovery in more ways than they all hoped.
Play trailer2:09
5 Videos
7 Photos
AdventureComedyDrama

David Portnoy, a fifteen-year-old birding fanatic, thinks that he's made the discovery of a lifetime. So, on the eve of his father's remarriage, he escapes on an epic road trip with his best... Read allDavid Portnoy, a fifteen-year-old birding fanatic, thinks that he's made the discovery of a lifetime. So, on the eve of his father's remarriage, he escapes on an epic road trip with his best friends to solidify their place in birding history.David Portnoy, a fifteen-year-old birding fanatic, thinks that he's made the discovery of a lifetime. So, on the eve of his father's remarriage, he escapes on an epic road trip with his best friends to solidify their place in birding history.

  • Director
    • Rob Meyer
  • Writers
    • Rob Meyer
    • Luke Matheny
  • Stars
    • Kodi Smit-McPhee
    • James Le Gros
    • Daniela Lavender Kingsley
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • IMDb RATING
    6.2/10
    2.5K
    YOUR RATING
    • Director
      • Rob Meyer
    • Writers
      • Rob Meyer
      • Luke Matheny
    • Stars
      • Kodi Smit-McPhee
      • James Le Gros
      • Daniela Lavender Kingsley
    • 23User reviews
    • 36Critic reviews
    • 61Metascore
  • See production info at IMDbPro
    • Awards
      • 2 wins & 1 nomination total

    Videos5

    Official Trailer
    Trailer 2:09
    Official Trailer
    A Birder's Guide to Everything
    Clip 1:45
    A Birder's Guide to Everything
    A Birder's Guide to Everything
    Clip 1:45
    A Birder's Guide to Everything
    A Birder's Guide to Everything
    Clip 1:01
    A Birder's Guide to Everything
    A Birder's Guide To Everything: Making Of (Featurette)
    Featurette 4:19
    A Birder's Guide To Everything: Making Of (Featurette)
    The Making of A Birder's Guide to Everything - Featurette
    Featurette 4:19
    The Making of A Birder's Guide to Everything - Featurette

    Photos6

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    Top cast30

    Edit
    Kodi Smit-McPhee
    Kodi Smit-McPhee
    • David Portnoy
    James Le Gros
    James Le Gros
    • Donald Portnoy
    • (as James LeGros)
    Daniela Lavender Kingsley
    Daniela Lavender Kingsley
    • Juliana Santos
    • (as Daniela Lavender)
    Katie Chang
    Katie Chang
    • Ellen Reeves
    Alex Wolff
    Alex Wolff
    • Timmy Barsky
    Zandi Holup
    Zandi Holup
    • Evelyn Reed
    Michael Chen
    • Peter Nessbaum
    Tobias Campbell
    Tobias Campbell
    • Rob Lindau
    Joel Van Liew
    • Mr. Edbrook
    Daniel Berger
    • Scarsdale High School Capt
    • (as Daniel G.S. Berger)
    Ben Kingsley
    Ben Kingsley
    • Lawrence Konrad
    Adam Barrie
    Adam Barrie
    • Eric
    Jessica Perez
    • Trish
    Ethan Cohn
    • Jeff
    Lucas Near-Verbrugghe
    • Trent
    Stephen Kunken
    Stephen Kunken
    • Ted
    Briana Marin
    Briana Marin
    • Mara
    Andy Prosky
    Andy Prosky
    • Carl Sr,
    • Director
      • Rob Meyer
    • Writers
      • Rob Meyer
      • Luke Matheny
    • All cast & crew
    • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

    User reviews23

    6.22.4K
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    Featured reviews

    7Buddy-51

    A charming coming-of-age tale

    "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.
    7Josie15-27-292450

    Sweet movie, especially if you've been through the same thing

    Not gonna lie, I was expecting a very sleepy, weird and well, extremely boring film. Sure, birds are lovely, but it sounds very dull to watch an entire movie about it. The only reason i even watched it was because i saw Kodi Smit-McPhee in Romeo & Juliet and i thought he was the best part of that movie. So i thought i'd give this movie a try.

    If you don't like kind of slow movies, then i guess this might not be a movie for you. I was a bit scared when i saw how long it was, but the time actually flew by (no pun intended lol). It was entertaining and even quite funny sometimes. But most of all, i saw myself a lot in the lead character. I'm actually in a quite similar family situation right now. Lost a parent a few years ago (the same age as the character) and now i'm kind of trying to live with the fact that there's a new partner in the picture. I'm of legal age now so it's not like i have a new dad, but it's still a very strange thing to experience.

    If you have been/are in a similar situation, then i would totally recommend watching this movie. It made me feel less alone at least. If you haven't been in that situation or isn't interested in birds...then you might find it a bit dull. But i think you should give it a try cause it's a sweet film.
    10barefootjessie

    Beautiful, touching and funny

    This is a sweet and moving film that goes beyond your ordinary feel-good movie. The layered story and its characters touch on grief, growing up, family, friendship, adventure and birds. Some topics that come up are: a father-son relationship, first crush, hiking, marriage, coming to terms with losing a loved one, competition and of course, bird-watching (which you will learn about in an authentic way). It is completely engaging, earnest and real. It is gorgeous to watch as the nature scenes are beautifully filmed. The acting is honest and the characters are delightful. It is also very, very funny. I loved it, as did my 14 year old son. I would recommend it for tweens, teens and adults.
    8StevePulaski

    The film teen birders have been waiting for but not expecting

    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.
    8cosmo_tiger

    Much better then I was expecting. I really liked it. The Big Year mixed with The Way Way Back and The Sasquatch Gang.

    "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+.

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    Storyline

    Edit

    Did you know

    Edit
    • Trivia
      The Labrador Duck is, in fact, an extinct species.
    • Goofs
      When the teenagers have stopped in the park to look at a bird, the sequence of who's standing where changes each time the camera angle changes.
    • Crazy credits
      In the closing credits, there is a Banvir Chaudhary and its misspelled version Banvir Shaudhary.
    • Soundtracks
      Truthfully
      Written by Jeremy Kirkland

      Performed by Jacksonknife

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    FAQ19

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    Details

    Edit
    • Release date
      • April 21, 2013 (United States)
    • Country of origin
      • United States
    • Official sites
      • Official Blog
      • Official Facebook
    • Language
      • English
    • Also known as
      • Всеобщее руководство птицелова
    • Filming locations
      • Cockaponset State Forest, Chester, Connecticut, USA(location)
    • Production companies
      • Dreamfly Productions
      • Escape Pictures
      • Lavender Pictures
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Box office

    Edit
    • Gross US & Canada
      • $48,713
    • Opening weekend US & Canada
      • $21,602
      • Mar 23, 2014
    • Gross worldwide
      • $48,713
    See detailed box office info on IMDbPro

    Tech specs

    Edit
    • Runtime
      1 hour 26 minutes
    • Color
      • Color
    • Aspect ratio
      • 2.35 : 1

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