This coming-of-age
comedy tackles family dysfunction sensitively but is unsure how to handle its hero’s mental health
Unhappy teenagers are each unhappy in their own way. But there is a movie template for the unhappiness of a certain kind of male of the species: that hypersensitive socially awkward outsider who sees right through the phoniness of the adult world and expresses himself with freakish maturity. Not wandering too far from the standard is 16-year-old James Whitman (Lucas Jade Zumann) the poet hero of this coming-of-age comedy with sad-serious bits. James has anxiety and depression, and he’s obsessed in a big way with his namesake, the poet Walt Whitman. The Dr Bird of the title is his imaginary psychiatrist, who he quirkily visualises as a pigeon (nicely voiced by Tom Wilkinson).
The movie follows James as he searches for his older sister, who mysteriously disappeared after a blazing row with their dad Carl (Jason Isaacs), an angry navy veteran. The family dysfunction stuff is sensitively handled with some originality; Carl is nicknamed “the brute” by his wife, a frustrated artist, and the kids, who hold him responsible as the fount of all unhappiness in the family. The truth turns out to be a little more nuanced.