Dr. Bird’s Advice for Sad Poets is exactly the movie I will think about the next time I enjoy a Wes Anderson movie and someone else finds it insufferably twee and self-indulgent. Because this movie is just that: an insufferable pile of quirky self-indulgence. It’s twee and it tries too hard to be unique and hipster weird.

The film follows a teenage boy with massive doses of anxiety over social interactions. He only has Dr. Bird – a literal pigeon – to talk to about his issues… and a photo of Walt Whitman on his wall. He’s a sad, lost boy who has a missing sister that he wants to find. He meets and falls in love with a cute girl who either doesn’t notice his stability issues or loves him for being a bundle of quirky weird.

This movie feels like someone drunk all the Wes Anderson Kool-Aid… it tries desperately hard to rise to his level of quirkiness but without his visual eye or skill as a writer. I was kind of into it at first, finding the opening scenes fun and funny. The actors enjoyable and fresh. But the longer the movie kept insisting on going, the more its failings became abundantly clear. An endless parade of oddness for the sake of being odd and then desperate attempts at being human and introspective. I didn’t buy it… and maybe some of the later scenes would have worked if the movie hadn’t lost me an hour earlier.

I say stay away from this film. I think people who tend to enjoy this style of quirky film-making are the only ones who would like it.. but it’s such a lesser version of that style of movie that I can’t imagine they’d get any more out of it than I did. But I could be wrong… maybe it’ll find an audience in the young, disillusioned, lonely, or sad.

Score: 64