All the Wilderness, or The Wilderness of James as it was originally titled, is a 2014 film written and directed by Michael Johnson. This is one of the Virginia Madsen films I watched as “new” for this whole thing, but also one I’d wanted to watch for a while. Not really sure how I ended up not getting around to it for this long though.
You know how it goes, it sits in your “must-watch” pile, and suddenly, it’s been ten years and you’re in the middle of a website dedicated to Virginia Madsen…
… That might just be me
The film starts and we’re slowly introduced to the main character of James Charm (Kodi Smit-McPhee), it couldn’t be more obvious that this kid is lonely and not quite fitting in with the world in which he finds himself. He’s drawing pictures of a dead bird for starters, which pretty much screams “weird kid” in the world of cinema. This label is reinforced over the rest of the opening of the film as we listen to him narrate his interpretation of the wisdom passed on to him from his Father before seeing him have a run in with the “popular kids”.
We learn that James has relatively recently lost his Father, he died. Since then he’s had a fascination with death. He’s taken to believe that he can predict when people, and animals, are going to die.
This of course doesn’t sit well with his Mother, Abigail (enter Virginia Madsen), who not only is coping with the death of her husband, but the effect that it’s all had on her only son. She’s trying to understand and help him, but it’s beyond her and so has employed professional help in the form of a Psychiatrist, Dr Pembry (Danny DeVito).
It’s during a visit to Dr Pembry that James meets Val (Isabelle Fuhrman), well, I say visit but she catches James as he’s just escaped his session with the Dr through a bathroom window. She’s obviously way more cool than he is and it makes for kind of an awkward interaction. James obviously doesn’t know how to talk to her, but did any of us really know at that age?
The film properly kicks in when Abigail finds the family Hamster dead in its cage. The death of the Hamster was of course predicted by James and so she feels like he’s purposefully harmed the pet to prove his point. James vehemently denies this of course and takes off into the night to escape his Mother.
It’s during this little solo adventure he meets Harmon (Evan Ross) and a somewhat unlikely friendship is struck up between the two. Harmon is used to life on the streets, he’s older and more hardened than James but he takes him under his wing after hearing James had seen him busking at a mall and enjoyed it.
And, any more at this point and we’d be veering off into spoiler territory.
Or, would we?
Honestly – This movie isn’t going to hold any surprises for anyone I don’t think. It’s a pretty generic story that’s been told a hundred times or more before, especially on the indie scene.
That doesn’t mean to say it’s not worth your time, just that there isn’t anything new or ground breaking here. What is fresh is the cinematography, well, maybe not fresh but it is a very good looking film. It’s obviously all done on a budget, but it’s been all used and looked after. The camera work, the vistas and even the colour palette used all stand out as someone looking after it with an eye for detail. Maybe even a little too much as I don’t often notice things like that… Or, maybe it was that well done I did notice.
The acting also stands out as being a cut above the rest as well. It’s not unusual for actors to use these kinds of films to show their true talent, but not one of them misses the target here. Kodi Smit-McPhee holds the film well, sometimes he comes across as naive but I put that down to his interpretation of the character. Isabelle Furhman and Evan Ross fill in the background nicely.
The film’s two biggest stars, Danny DeVito and Virginia Madsen don’t actually command that much screen time between them but they both leave their mark. Virginia’s performance is one of her more subtle ones. We’ve seen her do this thing before but it’s always a masterclass in how these things should be done. There’s an obvious emotional weight of a heartbroken woman refusing to give up despite the cards she’s been dealt. 
It’s impressive to think that around the time the movie came out she’d done the “Mother” thing a few times, but in very different ways. Anna Nicole and Crazy Kind of Love are both variations on the same theme of the Mother figure, but she was also pulling a different kind of Mother out of her bag of tricks for The Last Keepers and Grace Stirs up Success all around the same time.
All told, All the Wilderness is a worthy experience. It falls short of being a truly great must see film. But not by much.
The film’s back cover calls it “a coming of age” film, but for me it was a “coming to terms” film. The story isn’t without heart and the final 15 minutes of the film do give you the pay off you were probably expecting, but it’s still kind of satisfying.
Pick this one up, or don’t turn it over if you ever see it on the TV – It’s worth a watch.
Availability:
It’s not the most easily found film. But it shouldn’t take you long to find on DVD if you look properly, and if you don’t mind digital then it’s on some of the streaming channels as well if you don’t mind forking out a little for it.
Trailer:
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