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Bird comedy soars after uneasy start

What an unexpectedly sweet and life-affirming movie!

You would never guess from its dull, unmarketable title and its zany, not-exactly-honest trailers that "The Big Year" is all about finding your bliss and discovering what's truly important in life.

"The Big Year" is directed by David Frankel, who gave us the memorable movies "The Devil Wears Prada" and "Marley & Me." His new comic drama is closer in theme to Billy Crystal's coming-of-middle-age comedy "City Slickers" where three confused thirty-something men go on a cattle drive to find themselves and discover life's true treasures.

Here, three confused strangers enter a yearlong bird-watching contest called "The Big Year" (hence the interest-killing, insider's title).

Brad Harris (Jack Black) is 36, lives at home with his parents (Brian Dennehy and Dianne Wiest), hates his job and has no direction.

Kenny Bostick (Owen Wilson) works as a successful contractor married to a blonde bombshell (Cindy Busby) and trying to get pregnant while she renovates their expensive house.

Stu Preissler (Steve Martin) already tried retiring from the company he created many years ago, but keeps getting sucked back into the office by two corporate lackeys too insecure to do anything without his input and approval.

Kenny is the reigning Big Year champion, having personally seen and identified more than 700 varieties of birds within a calendar year. He will do anything to stay at the top of the bird heap.

On a whim, Brad thinks doing a Big Year might be something to reignite his passion for life. So, against his father's grumbling wishes, he sets out on his quest with only one advantage: he can identify any bird by its song, and the Big Year rules state that's sufficient to quality as a find.

Stu, an avid birder, has wanted to do a Big Year for a long time, but he couldn't leave job responsibilities and his ever-understanding wife Edith (JoBeth Williams) for it.

The lives of the these men continually intersect in comical but likely ways as they travel around the nation, quickly and carefully clocking bird sightings on the honor system.

"The Big Year" takes a long time to find its stride. In fact, I wanted to walk out of it during the first half-hour because of the lazy, brainless way that Brad launches into a first-person voice-over narration.

Brad not only tells us what he's thinking, but he knows everything about Kenny and Stu's lives, including what <I>they're thinking</I> at any given time.

Not only is this a stupid approach to narration by a character inside a story (hey, "Sex and the City" used it for years), the device backfires on Frankel when character Brad becomes shocked to learn something that narrator Brad already told us he knew earlier in the movie. How shocked can he be?

If you can sit through a punishing first act, "The Big Year" eventually becomes a smart and savvy movie that adroitly sidesteps clichés at every turn.

As its three bird-watching competitors form uneasy relationships, "The Big Year" refuses to turn anyone into an easy villain, but celebrates how their seemingly selfish quests lead them to spiritual epiphanies.

"The Big Year" never goes for overt sentimentality or simplistic happy endings.

Although only two of the birders heed the lessons they've learned on the road, all three wind up heeding the advice of Jack Palance in "City Slickers" by finding the "one thing" that matters most.

Only in this movie, it's the two or three things that matter the most.

&lt;b&gt;“The Big Year” &lt;/b&gt;

★ ★ ★

Starring: Jack Black, Owen Wilson, Steve Martin, Anjelica Huston

Directed by: David Frankel

Other: A 20th Century Fox release. Rated PG. 90 minutes

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