The Big Year (2011)

I really had a lot more fun watching this than I thought I would. Starring Steve Martin makes a hit, Owen Wilson is a hit-or-miss, and Jack Black is usually a miss, so I had no idea how to perceive the widely under-seen bird-watching comedy The Big Year. And especially with it getting as mixed reviews as it did, actually leaning towards the negative, I got scared that the sweet little comedy that I noticed when nobody else did was just going to be another anger-inducing studio rehash of a better comedy (because no matter what anybody says, the worst kind of bad movie is a bad comedy, because you can’t laugh at it, you just scream in agony. My fingers are trembling right now thinking of how much my voice hurt after watching Something Borrowed), and I was actually very close to being able to see this movie in theaters. Close but no cigar. I was unable to catch the comedy in theaters, so I had to watch it on my own poor little self on my 2.5-inch-wide iPhone. And when a movie makes me laugh and is engrossing on 2.5 inches, that is a funny movie.

Based off of the novel of the same name, The Big Year follows bird-enthusiasts Stu (Steve Martin), Brad (Jack Black), and Kenny (Owen Wilson), as they all try to (in Stu’s and Brad’s cases) see the most birds in North America in one year, or (in Kenny Bostick’s case) beat his own record or just hold onto it so that he can still be king. Stu is a happily married man on the edge of retirement, looking back at all the things he wanted to do, so he sets out to do a ‘big year’, which is the challenge where one person tries to see the most birds in North America in one year. Brad still lives with his parents, is divorced, and has no direction in his life than his birds, so he decides to do the same thing so he can prove to himself his worth. Kenny is the arrogant who-knows-how-many-times-married king of the birds, a wealthy and snobby individual who will never let go of his record, so, despite the objections of his wife (who has really good grounds for saying these things, by the way), he leaves to beat his own record, a record that trashed one of his marriages before. The thing about this film is that we are supposed to root for everybody but Kenny, and the film does a good job of it. We root for Stu, we root for Brad, we even root for the smaller characters, including Ellie (the always fabulous Rashida Jones), a potential romantic interest for Stu.

This is a rare thing-a film with good honest people that doesn’t beat you over the head with that fact. This entire movie just lives on the spirit of good spirit, and is such a wonderful film to watch. It is a very funny, well-written, well-acted piece of sweet filmmaking, and is a movie you could watch with your mom. There is some slight profanity (I usually don’t mention stuff like that because I don’t think the actual inappropriate content of a film is important to if someone should see it), but other than that, this is just a sweet family film that proves no harm to anybody who would see it, and if somebody does, they will be brought to a sweet, simple, and pretty clever movie, one that I recommend in the highest degree.
8.5/10