I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

Fresh and Exciting

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

James Charm (Kodi Smit-McPhee) gets into a fight with a schoolmate. He's obsessed with death and infuriates others with predictions of their deaths. His frustrated mother Abigail Charm (Virginia Madsen) sends him to psychiatrist Dr. Pembry (Danny DeVito) who wants him to attend a special school. He falls for fellow patient Val (Isabelle Fuhrman). He's in the city at night where he's befriended by Harmon (Evan Ross).Kodi's gawky weirdness is interesting. Isabelle's darker edge is also pretty interesting. There are some surreal touches that could be interesting but it needs to be more consistent. Harmon and the street kids have potential. It's all potentially great. The main missing ingredient is intensity. Other than the delusions, there is a lethargy to the movie. I guess it's the sense of depression coming from James due to his family issue. Despite the fights, I may need him to scream.

This is the kind of film for which cinema was invented ! Probably made on a tiny budget, it looks utterly beautiful, tells a simple story in a poetic way and moves deeply. It oozes atmosphere and doesn't take a single wrong step. I can't recommend it highly enough!

Director/writer Michael Johnson has offered a wonderful film about finding the 'self'.Here we have James Charm with an obsession for dead things like birds, insect, and wilderness dwelling creatures and sketching their dead bodies into his journal. James also visits a therapist, reluctantly. There is something bothering James and we the viewer are kept in the dark until the end of the story as to what he is depressed about.To find himself he sneaks out at night and goes into the inner city. This is James wilderness. We learn earlier in the story that his father told James about the wonders of the wilderness and that we all have some of that wilderness within us. James is looking for himself and there is one scene with his therapist (Danny DeVito) that is James awakening moment. He discovers he cannot ever know why his father .... He can only know about himself! This is a sensitive movie wonderfully edited and filmed. I was particularly taken with how director Michael Johnson portrayed James inner demons. The story is about growing up and learning about the world we live in as opposed to the world within us.

Imagine watching your father jump off a bridge? Woah. That would mess you up pretty good. He keeps drawing pictures of dead animals. To capture them in time. To freeze time in that moment of death. He wanted to understand why his dad would kill himself. Especially when he says stuff like "the wilderness is inside of all of us". This is could be chaos or serenity. The kid tried to understand this message that was passed down to him. In the end, he realizes that he is not like his dad. He chooses to stop living in his cursed life any more. He said his life was cursed. That he could see when people would die. Well, he actually literally saw his dad die. So he meant that he could tell when his dad was going to die. He sensed the inner torment, the wilderness, inside of his dad. He projected that onto his outside world. To try and find some answers he had to become close with death, and to try and understand it at a young age.