Wonderful character development!

Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Would you like to watch a "whimsical" - to quote Roger Ebert - film shot in Newfoundland where the scenery is a good part of the whimsy? Then "Rare Birds" is your box of chocolates. It stars gorgeous Molly Parker as Alice and a not quite so hot but still handsome William Hurt as Dave. The chemistry between these actors is your "valentine" and Andy Jones as Phonse is your comedy. He is brilliant as a loyal but scheming best friend to Dave. Every scene - excluding the ones with Phonse's "recreational submarine? - is charming. Who wouldn't want a buddy like him to add spice to life?Actor Andy Jones is well known in Canada. It's no wonder why.Another Canadian charmer in the film is Molly Parker. Ms Parker's Alice is an intelligently sexy complement to William Hurt's Dave. And because of this, Dave falls in love pretty well right after he fleetingly looks at and greets Alice at a dinner party.Despite Mr. Hurt as a headliner - and it is well-deserved - this is a quintessentially Canadian film. Éilís knows many Newfoundlanders might want her to write "Newfoundland" instead of "Canadian" film. But western Canadians like herself have grandparents from the province. And they have been enjoying the Newfie comedic talent on Canada's screens since the dawn of television.

I just finished reading all the other comments and am confounded by the ones that say this is a funny movie. I maybe shouldn't comment on the movie as a whole, as I was unable to finish watching it, it was so boring. So, I'll limit my comments to the birder perspective: As a birder, I am insulted by the made up bird names (red-breasted grebe? Give me a break), and the use of an extinct bird for title character. Birders do rush to see rarities when possible, but it wouldn't have had to be something that esoteric to bring "us" in. And, while I admit I am not at all conversant with Newfoundland nuance, I'm hard pressed to understand how anything else about this movie could be redeeming, except for the scenery which was awesome.

I found this movie to be hugely disappointing. The dialogue was boring, the storyline while promising, was handled very badly and the sub-plots absolutely incomprehensible. I looked to forward to seeing this film because of comments I had read here and from comments of other birdwatchers. In the end I felt as though I had wasted my time. The Newfoundland scenery and Andy Jones were the most redeeming quality of the picture, though I felt that given better material, Molly Parker would have proved to be a gem. William Hurt however, has been better. All other characters were nothing more than window dressing, something this film could have used a lot more of, even though if you put lipstick on a pig, it is still a pig. Had I found this film more enjoyable, I feel that I could have easily overlooked the fact that the rare bird mentioned in the film is not a real critter.

S-l-o-o-o-w paced romantic comedy. One keeps hoping for it to get better, or at least funnier, but it never does. This same clever story, with this same cast, could have been funny and entertaining, if only it had had better planning, writing, continuity, and direction. But the timing is off, many of the scenes are awkward, the minor characters are undeveloped, and the three main characters seem to change personality, appearance, and accent pretty much randomly from scene to scene. Plus the sub-plot involving cocaine was gratuitously ugly and irrelevant to the rest of the story, and made it very difficult to sympathize with Hurt's character. If you do rent Rare Birds on DVD, don't miss the theatrical trailer. It shows how the whole movie should have been handled. 4/10