James Charm is obsessed with death. We meet him scribbling an obituary for a dead crow he spies in a cornfield.
He narrates his life story in an enervated, depressing drone, always quoting his father.
Dad loved the wilderness, he says. “It’s a place where all things go to live, and all things go to die.”
Turns out, his dad is dead. And James (Kodi Smit-McPhee) isn’t coping well. He’s developed the habit of predicting deaths. That’s sad when you’re talking about your pet hamster. But that’ll get you beaten up when you send notes to classmate Cory that he “will die in 279 days.”
Writer-director Michael Johnson covers a lot of familiarly morbid teen ground in “All the Wilderness,” a film with touches of “Ordinary People” and a hint of “Harold & Maude.” But touches and a hint aren’t enough to lift this morose movie into anything any of us need to see or hear to deepen our understanding of teen depression, grief and love.
James’s mother (Virginia Madsen) can only pay lip service to his condition, home-schooling him to keep him out of the reach of school bullies who won’t understand what he’s going through.
Danny DeVito is Walter, apparently his shrink. It’s one of the movies cleverest touches that Walter makes his sessions more like distracted conversations with the kids. He carves and sands wooden chess pieces as they chat. Less intimidating, if a little insulting.
James is that classic movie-awkward teen, smart enough to quote Carl Sandburg poems, clueless enough to try this as a pickup line, noticing a pretty girl’s ring.
“Did you that turquoise isn’t actually from Turkey?”
Val (Isabelle Fuhrman) works in the family bakery concocting odd donuts and eclairs — dipped in Tang, the breakfast drink, for instance. Accessible and beguiling, she’s also seeing Walter.
And then there’s Harmon (Evan Ross), a hip black teen musician who takes James under his wing. Dancing, chasing a girl and hanging out — just what James needs.
The money moments in Johnson’s film aren’t the overworn teens flirting, fighting and shoplifting scenes. It’s when his demons literally get the best of James. He finds himself chased down dark alleys, onto buses, by hooded wraiths straight out of “Ghost.” Chilling.
McPhee and Fuhrman are child actors best known for “The Road” and “Orphan,” respectively. They have good screen presence. And even if this slight movie never quite finds its way out of the you-know-what, each at least shows his and her potential for finding better roles as teens, maybe even sticking with acting into adulthood.

MPAA Rating: unrated, with adult themes and situations, teen drinking, profanity

Cast: Kodi Smit-McPhee, Virginia Madsen, Evan Ross, Isabelle Fuhrman, Danny DeVito
Credits: Written and directed by Michael Johnson. A release.

Running time: 1:22