The term “contrived” can’t begin to cover the whoppers we’re expected to tolerate, in this film’s eye-rollingly ludicrous storyline.
Nor could we ever, ever forgive the protagonist’s selfish, bitchy behavior and heinous first-act crime ... even though we’re intended to, during the tear-jerking finale.
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| Jaan (Brian Cox) pauses at the threshold of the house that Kaitlyn (Brooklynn Prince) shares with her mother and brother, and ponders what to do about the fact that this girl has wronged him in the worst possible manner. |
John Gatins’ script supposedly is inspired by Susan Orlean’s January 2006 New Yorker nonfiction article of the same title, but that’s grossly insulting to her; the two have nothing in common, aside from their shared focus on pigeon racing. Gatins deserves sole blame for the mess he has wrought.
The setting is present-day Portland, Oregon (where much of this film clearly was filmed). Brooklynn Prince stars as 13-year-old Kaitlyn McKay, depressed following the divorce of her parents, Maddie (Kelly Reilly) and Sean (Jonathan Togo). Both Kaitlyn and her brother Matt (Simon Khan) have remained with their mother.
Kaitlyn, angry at almost everything, is in serious danger of flunking eighth grade. She has only one friend, Adam (Che Tafari), loyal to the core. (She doesn’t deserve him.)
The final straw: Maddie, unable to afford the mortgage, has put their house up for sale. Kaitlyn loves her home, viewing it as the only tie to happier times, and can’t bear the thought of having to leave.
One evening, in an oddly random act of kindness, family friends gift Kaitlyn with a pair of homing pigeons. (We cannot imagine why.) She couldn’t care less, but Adam is inspired to learn more about the birds. Turns out there’s big money in racing, and one of the all-time champions — a white-tufted pigeon dubbed The Granger — is owned by veteran racer Jaan Vari (Cox), who lives in Portland; the bird is valued at $125,000.
Kaitlyn decides to steal it (!), sell it, and use the money to save her home.
Okay, fine; teenagers think and do dumb things. But even on that scale, this concept is awfully far Out There.
But wait. It gets worse.
Kaitlyn badgers Adam into helping with the heist. They figure out where Jaan lives, and — late one night — climb to the roof loft that holds his scores of birds, The Granger among them. It’s wholly unguarded: no protective barrier, no alarm system. (Seriously? A $125,000 superstar, unattended and ready to be plucked by anybody who wanders by? Puh-leaze.)
So she steals it. Jaan wakes during the subsequent commotion, and she flees, abandoning Adam to an uncertain fate. He shows up for school the next day with a broken wrist, due to the jump he was forced to make from the bottom ladder of a fire escape. In one of this stupid story’s rare acknowledgments of reasonable human behavior, Adam subsequently shuns Kaitlyn. (Good for him.)
Sadly, not for long.
She quickly learns that no reputable racer wants anything to do with a stolen bird with such immediately recognizable features. The only option: the Russian “pigeon Mafia.” (God as my witness, I’m not making this up.) Jaan soon tracks her down, but not until after she has traded the bird ... for a mere $25,000. (Frankly, I’m surprised the three Russians didn’t simply snatch the bird and kill her, thus putting us out of our misery.)
Jaan learns all of this in short order. Does he turn her over to the police? Of course not. Instead, although understandably enraged, he becomes a fixture in her life, while demanding that she figure out how to get his beloved bird back. Meanwhile, this close exposure piques Kaitlyn’s interest and growing fascination with homing pigeons; Jaan therefore becomes a mentor.
Uh-huh. Pull the other leg; it has bells.
No reasonable viewer will have the slightest interest in what follows from this bone-stupid first act, but — improbable, but true — Cox compensates for a lot. He makes Jaan and his behavior earnest and credible: an aggrieved man with his own troubles, trying to understand and forgive this reprehensible excuse for a young woman. Cox doesn’t help this story become believable — nobody could — but Jaan is a genuine human being.
The same is true of Reilly’s performance as Maddie. She’s often in the background, but her expressions speak volumes, with respect to a mother’s growing concern about her troubled daughter. Reilly also sells a heart-to-heart talk at a key moment.
Tafari’s Adam is adorable: sweet, kind and girl-crazy in a way that’s amusing, rather than crass. Khan isn’t able to bring anything to his under-written role as Matt, who has withdrawn into himself following the divorce.
Poor Prince can’t be blamed for the role she has undertaken, but neither she nor director Dean Israelite can make Kaitlyn the slightest bit credible. Her dialogue is forced and often awkward, her behavior frequently just weird: notably her random attempt to finally cite a “person she admires,” as a long-overdue class assignment.
I know people don’t set out to make bad movies, particularly in the case of modest little indies such as this one. But anybody with an ounce of sense should have recognized that Gatins’ script was dead on arrival; all concerned should have moved on to something else.
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