Susan Orlean’s journalism has made its way onto the big screen on a number of occasions most famously in 2002 when Charlie Kaufman brought Orlean’s work into an ‘Oscar-nominated’ film “Adaptation” which was centered on the ‘nature of writing’. But even the girl power surfing movie “Blue Crush” (also from 2002) had some interesting rough edges in it . I wish I could say something similar about “Little Wing”, the latest movie that is based on Orlean’s singular journalism. The screenplay by John Gatins who penned ‘Flight’ is somewhat acceptable (it does contain some howlers) but Dean Israelite’s direction is so over the top, chaotic and all over the place that it makes any other charm the narrative might have boldly had irrelevant.
Set in portland, oregon the film features Brooklynn prince, younger looking and composed like a young Kelly macdonald, as an upset 13 year old called Kaitlyn who pushes the blame for all her bad behaviors in school due to the “emotionally challenging” situation of her parent’s separation. Kaitlyn stays with her detective mom Maddie (Kelly Reilly) and her brother Matt (Simon Kahn) who has become rather mute after the collapse of his family. Having put the family house up for sale because they cannot stand the mortgage on the house of $100K (but still manage to pay for private schooling for the kids) Maddie is reaching out for buyers. To bemuse, she also allowed her ‘friend’ at work give Kaitlyn 2 young racing pigeons .
Kaitlyn does think much about birds until her closest friend Adam (Che Tafari) explains to her about the existence of a bird an aggressive enthusiast of pigeon racing Jaan (Brian Cox), whose bird Granger is estimated to be worth $125000. The two kids then and there decide to steal the bird and sell it off to the Russian pigeon mafia . Then , of course Jaan pursues them and the entire group decides to fight the mafia and recover their loot.
There is a quite beautiful metaphor about the neurotic pigeons and the space within home, this is established quite clearly from the opening scene with a quote by Orlean about the quite normal facy of racing pigeons it having, “an unshakeable, deep, and practically unassailable notion of home.” Kaitlyn is pigeon yet there is never a concrete foundational answer as to why does she value her home so much.
With the exception of a strong affinity for Bikini Kill, the character of Kailtyn does not develop much further than broad teenage angst with an occasional ear piercing dark and depressed suicidal notion. Most of the characters are in fact, majority of them are, quite the blank slate. Maddie is a cop in Portland, a city defined by police aggression but which is never mentioned. Why would Adam, a black boy in the payne fueled post-Ferguson world, offer to commit a crime with Kaitlyn just so he might get to French kiss her is even worse nonsense. Cox does his best in this role, and in what could have been a lovely marriage of performances to Nicolas cage’s poetic turn in the obviously more enjoyable film set in Portland “Pig”, he is required to deliver a performance where the illness, cancer no less, is revealed 3/4 the film has gone, and is distracting rather than providing sympathy.
All of this could have been well formed if it was not for Israelite’s direction , which was completely directionless. He’s still stuck in that hyperactive cartoon aesthetic that seems to be the current style for animated features aimed at children, and is still condescending to them. As if the premise wasn’t outlandish enough, Israelite tries to fuse several genres including comedy, action, and drama, while Anne Nikitin’s score manages to get stuck in a strange purgatory, shifting between three distinct and uncohesive musical styles. Directing techniques such as smash edits and other gawdy techniques detracts attention from the performances of the actors. It’s very common for a movie nowadays, “Little Wing” has large aspect ratio; yet, Israelite and Cutter as able as cinematographers they are still fail to fill the wide screen with anything interesting to watch.
Kaitlyn looses it and in the middle of a presentation, she starts yelling parts of the Le Tigre song “Keep On Livin’” and blurts the line “This is your time, this is your life and You gotta keep on (Keep on livin!)” ad nauseam. This should be an exhilarating experience for the spectators as well as the kailtyn however, the inflection point is ruined by the hand held shoddy camera work by cutter and the pathetic editing which tries to guide the viewer on how to feel rather allowing them to feel through the performance of Prince.
Pigeons are quite amazing birds. Their feathers can be iridescent, covered with a variety of colors such as dark purple, grey, orange, and teal. Granger is reported to have a white helmet head, and although the bird depicted does fit that description, he will never be able to see the details of the head. Neither do Kaitlyn’s new birds, Charlie Tickets and Juliet . While the last pigeon’s eyes are surrounded by thousands of badly rendered pigeons, the head turns and Cox is shown tipping his head as if saying goodbye to the migrating birds in the morning sun.
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