Synopsis
Keeping to himself in the wake his father's death, James Charm finds refuge in solitary walks and creating morbid sketches — until a charismatic new friend and a quirky young woman begin to draw him out of his shell.
All the Wilderness
2014 Directed by Michael James Johnson
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Alternative Titles
The Wilderness of James, Jamesova divljina, Kinn a vadonban, Miejska dżungla, In salbaticie, Дикая природа Джеймса, Todo salvaje, כל המדבר, Дивата природа, Jamesova divjina, 올 더 윌더니스
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USA
South by Southwest Film Festival
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USA
09 Mar 2014
- Premiere South by Southwest Film Festival
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36/100
A.V. Club review. Somebody punches Kodi Smit-McPhee hard in the face very early on, and I was like "just end it now; your work is done."
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Callum Hofler presents his short guide on how to create a contrived, self-indulgent teen melodrama, based on the techniques and qualities showcased within Michael Johnson's latest coming of age drama!
Step 1: Your protagonist must be as whiny, unsociable, embarrassing and plain irritating as possible. If that means resorting to making the actor stretch out every single line he has, then so be it.
Step 2: His love interest needs to possess as little personality as possible. Remember; she's just a pretty girl with a sad back story and nothing more.
Step 3: While we're at it, sad back stories for everyone! The less resilient members of the audience (generally those who haven't ever watched a generic film of this…
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Yet another trite configuration of the tired elements that always seem to make up these coming-of-age dramas. The only surprising and, perhaps, original aspect of writer/director Michael Johnson’s debut, All the Wilderness, is how uninspired it all feels. No one, on-screen, gives the impression that this is, in fact, a story that needs to be told; yet, told it is by frustratingly going through the motions with little to no passion.
Kodi Smit-McPhee gets the task of playing the gangly sulkster James Charm. And, no, his surname is not an indication of his character’s personality; actually, quite the opposite as we follow this Charm character around, one quickly realizes that he only operates in various shades of one mode –…
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Simple pero contundente película acerca de los sentimientos que quedan después de la muerte a alguien cercano y querido. De cómo el mundo deja de interesar, cómo todo se cierra, cómo todo se pierde, y de poco a poco cómo ir regresando a la realidad, pero al mismo tiempo de cómo a veces la realidad a la que se regresa, sigue siendo la misma que existía antes, áspera, amarga, no tan agradable...
Parece que mucha gente odió esta película acá, pero creo que hay una edición de poesía voice over sumado a unas tomas experimentales del bosque y de las calles editadas de una manera que me gustaron demasiado. Me gustó bastante, gracias a Sharys, que siempre me pone a ver peliculitas pequeñitas que me gustan y que no están en mi radar.
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Orgasmic cinematography, highly relatable and lovely performances. A fantastic, coming of age.
One of my favorites of the year!
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If u make a movie about an anti social, music obsessed freak who wears cool sweaters i’m going to eat it up every time. Sorry haters!
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A pretty standard but charming coming of age tale that works quite well with its small runtime, plus excellent performances by Smit-McPhee and Fuhrman!
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So darn indie it hurts. I mean, literally, it hurts. This movie's terrible. I'm hard pressed to think of a film I hated more than All the Wilderness. The only people I can imagine liking this movie are the "The Catcher in the Rye is my favorite book" kids. This movie is like if someone watched Taxi Driver and The Perks of Being a Wallflower, didn't understand either of them, and decided to make a hybrid of the two.
All the Wilderness is immoral, incompetent, and idiotic. This film is badly lit, badly filmed, HORRIBLY written, has mediocre acting, badly edited, and badly directed. From a thematic sense it fails on almost every level.
The heavy-handedness in this movie makes…
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Honestly, this film has grown on me a great deal of a rewatch. Still have some serious issues with the film, but its truly one of the more exciting, fresh coming of age films in quite some time. The performances are great and the film hits its audience hard.
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All the Wilderness is an effective coming-of-age mood piece that accomplishes the catatonic protagonist approach, if a bit lacking. Genre tropes are there, like playful law-breaking, a love interest, and a misunderstanding with that love interest, but those still manage to contribute to the film's theme. That theme isn't necessarily present throughout the whole thing, really only showing itself in the final five minutes, but it's somewhat resonant, and makes the staggeringly short runtime feel rewarding enough. Kodi Smit-McPhee plays your standard catatonic teen turned semi-social, but with subtle nuances that make him feel unique. Maybe it's his character's willingness to explore life like the wilderness he talks about so much, because the writing definitely makes that clear.
It's a good first effort from writer/director Michael Johnson, and is at least worth a look.
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All the Wilderness is an average coming of age Drama that has a few beautiful moments but is mostly directionless when it's not resting on cliches.
Isabelle Fuhrman is the best thing about it, I've been a fan since Orphan (honestly, give her more roles) and she really makes it work in the few scenes she shares with star Kodi Smit-McPhee.
All things considered, the last time Danny DeVito played a therapist it ended up being The Virgin Suicides so maybe they saw what they had to live up to and got scared. -
