All the Wilderness

Director/writer Michael Johnson has offered a wonderful film about finding the 'self'.

Here we have James Charm with an obsession for dead things like birds, insect, and wilderness dwelling creatures and sketching their dead bodies into his journal. James also visits a therapist, reluctantly. There is something bothering James and we the viewer are kept in the dark until the end of the story as to what he is depressed about.

To find himself he sneaks out at night and goes into the inner city. This is James wilderness. We learn earlier in the story that his father told James about the wonders of the wilderness and that we all have some of that wilderness within us. James is looking for himself and there is one scene with his therapist (Danny DeVito) that is James awakening moment. He discovers he cannot ever know why his father .... He can only know about himself!

This is a sensitive movie wonderfully edited and filmed. I was particularly taken with how director Michael Johnson portrayed James inner demons. The story is about growing up and learning about the world we live in as opposed to the world within us.