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.
