All the Wilderness

Yes, writer-director Michael Johnson cranks the Malick meter up to 11 in this sensitive coming-of-age drama.

All The Wilderness may ultimately be hindered by a narrow scope, but within that view, Johnson gets pretty much every detail right.

The images gorgeously embody both the fear and the beauty of James's exploratory experiments with socialization.

All the Wilderness seems tailor-made to play to the actor's strengths — Johnson's script is as lean as Smit-McPhee, both proving adept at doing more with less.

Mr. Johnson doesn’t give fateful weight to the breadcrumbs that guide James forward. Glancing encounters and faltering conversations unfold lightly and with a visual seductiveness that the cinematographer, Adam Newport-Berra, crescendos in the film’s drifting, transformative middle section.

Nothing even remotely wild touches this generic indie movie, which embraces every imaginable cliché in depicting the emotional travails of a sensitive kid in mourning. There isn’t a wolf in it, nor a fox, nor a hog, nor much of anything else. Maybe a chicken.

The stakes of All The Wilderness aren’t high, because Johnson never directs his attentions to the real issue at hand: James is ill, and gallivanting around Portland for a few nights isn’t going to fix that.