Review of All the Wilderness (2014) by Callum H — 23 Feb 2015

Callum Hofler presents his short guide on how to create a contrived, self-indulgent teen melodrama, based on the techniques and qualities showcased within Michael Johnson's latest coming of age drama!

Step 1: Your protagonist must be as whiny, unsociable, embarrassing and plain irritating as possible. If that means resorting to making the actor stretch out every single line he has, then so be it.

Step 2: His love interest needs to possess as little personality as possible. Remember; she's just a pretty girl with a sad back story and nothing more.

Step 3: While we're at it, sad back stories for everyone! The less resilient members of the audience (generally those who haven't ever watched a generic film of this like) shall be weeping in their seats, which means success!

Step 4: Alcohol and narcotics. Your terrible protagonist is a little bundle of joy when he's off his tits, so make sure you have a few sequences where you get him high or wasted. If you can make it visually appealing, I guess that's a bonus.

Step 5: Alcoholism is rife within the family; the protagonist's mother needs to be suffering in some form, so that we can somewhat sympathize with her. So get her some wine, some glasses, and you're set!

Step 6: This is not to be underestimated: you need a lot of red and blue gels for your lighting rig. It doesn't matter if they fit the tone of the film or not; you're making modern quirk but still want to separate yourself from the king of such, Wes Anderson, so you should just layer on the terrible filters and lighting.

Step 7: We need an emotional breakdown. Without an emotional breakdown, we have no climax. Because these film's lack that fundamental component, we need to substitute genuine tension building and character development for a mental breakdown that serves as the highest point of tension.

Step 8: Shoot every (or nearly every) dialogue sequence in close-up. Because disjointed and boring filmmaking is good!

Step 9: Lots of useless dialogue! Do you want to provide unnecessary chatter, but lack the bravado and intelligence of Quentin Tarantino to make it work? Who cares! Just chuck it in there!

Step 10: Boring, pretentious monologues about life and death and all that jam are very much required. You want to bash philosophical, unrelated details into your viewer's head. Restraint is for pussies.

Bonus Points: I kind of mentioned this in Step 1, but this is for all actors now; include awkward stilts in dialogue at any and every point possible. It doesn't matter if this renders any attempts at genuine chemistry between the male and female leads entirely redundant, because lets be honest; the real issue prevalent is the fact that without these stilts in dialogue, you're not going to have enough film to make up a full-length feature.

Congratulations! You have now constructed a teenage-demographic melodrama that features a lifeless protagonist, often convoluted and unnecessary shaky cinematography and an overly stylized lighting palette. The only way you're making any of this back up is thanks to some decent/great performances from the supporting ensemble, an engaging finale, fantastic production design, some sequences showcasing a relatively adequate knowledge of film form and some enthralling locations. Otherwise, you're set to make the critics roll their eyes at another film festival featuring the same indie-styled film we've all seen before from this genre! How joyous!