Steve Martin (left), Jack Black (center) and Owen Wilson star in "The Big Year."
Follow your passion, no matter how birdbrained it may seem to others.
That's the basic message in The Big Year, a sweet-tempered comedy about three very different men engaged in competitive birding. A 'big year' for fans of fowl involves counting up the number of species spotted over a calendar year in a specific area (whether that's a single state or province or a whole country). In real life, competitive birders have pushed the total seen to more than 700 species.
In The Big Year, Kenny Bostick (Owen Wilson) is regarding as the reigning champ of birding. His big year netted 732 types of birds, and he's keen to maintain his crown.
Then there's Brad (Jack Black) a nerdy guy living at home who aspires to be one of the best birders extant. He works full time and he can't really afford the travel involved to fulfill his ambition, but he's decided that he's going to have a big year anyway. He's going to beg, borrow and steal, and just go for it.
Somewhere in between the expert and the novice is Stu (Steve Martin), a successful businessman who keeps trying to retire. He too has decided to go for a big year. If only they'd stop phoning him to come back to the office ...
The Big Year looks to its characters for humour, with Owen Wilson playing the crafty competitor, Jack Black the earnest dreamer and Steve Martin the sage of the group. Their adventures to far-flung spots to look for birds injects a bit of adventure into the story, and to their credit, the actors manage to convey the sense of wonder any birder would experience upon seeing a rare creature.
The movie's only soggy bits involve the stitched-on conflict each character must manage. Jack Black's character has a father who doesn't understand him; Steve Martin's character just can't seem to quit his job for good; and Owen Wilson continues to neglect his wife, who wants children. Still, all those story elements put actors such as Rosamund Pike, JoBeth Williams, Dianne Wiest, Anjelica Huston and Brian Dennehy into the mix, so it's not a total loss.
The Big Year isn't really about birding, you won't be surprised to learn, but about what a person makes of his life and how he treats the people he encounters. Much is made of family relationships, such as a mother's moral support for her son or a man's delight in his first grandchild, and the story's winners and losers are judged by the human company they keep. Any avian achievements are a distant second.
The Big Year is harmless, funny and not written for teenage boys -- a fairly remarkable development at the movies. The writing could be sharper, but never mind. You could bring your old granny to this film without a moment's hesitation.
That's not exactly a ringing endorsement, we realize, but if you're tired of gross-out humour and interested to see what three leading comics do with this mild-mannered material, The Big Year is well worth a look. The film is based on the bestseller by Mark Obmascik.
