- I'll fully admit that I was apprehensive about watching Alejandro G. Iñárritu's Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance), mostly because of its absurdly pretentious title. When the equally obnoxious opening credits popped into view, I grew even more concerned. But then, something magical happened. An underwear-clad Michael Keaton hovered in the middle of a messy room and, in his best, over-the-hill, three-packs-a-day, Batman voice rasped, "This place is horrible. Smells like balls." Suddenly, my fears were lifted. This was going to be a film that knew how to have fun with wanting to be taken seriously.
- In fact, being taken seriously is what motivates all of the characters in Birdman. For washed-up actor Riggan Thomson, this means shedding (or perhaps molting?) his association with the Birdman superhero franchise so that he can direct and headline a Broadway adaptation of a Raymond Carver story. For a young woman named Sam (Emma Stone), it means defying people's sole impression of her as Riggan Thompson's junkie daughter. For actress Lesley Truman (Naomi Watts), it means finally making it big on Broadway. For notoriously difficult actor Mike Shiner (Edward Norton), it means realism at any -- and I do mean any -- cost. For actress Laura Aulburn (Andrea Riseborough), it means becoming something more than just Riggan's girlfriend-of-convenience. Doubtless, the play's producer (Zach Galifianakis) imagines that averting disaster would ensure that he was taken seriously.
- But, as the previews begin, disaster arrives in an amusingly wide variety of forms. The first incident, which may or may not have been caused by Riggan's telekinetic-but-perhaps-imaginary Birdman persona, occurs when a stagelight clobbers a talentless actor (Jeremy Shamos). Several of the other episodes involve Shiner, who constantly tops his own previous records for awfulness by drinking onstage, ranting at the audience, undressing in front of/making out with Sam, and forcing himself on Lesley (also onstage). But the film's truly apocalyptic moments belong to Riggan. In the first case, he accidentally locks himself out of the theatre and has to march through Times Square in his underpants, becoming that which he most fears: a viral sensation. In the second case, he earns a coveted positive review from the notoriously prickly New York Times theatre critic (Lindsay Duncan) by shooting himself in the head onstage with a real gun. Finally some action, instead of all this "talky, depressing, philosophical bullshit."
- Although Birdman shares its fondness for tracking shots, overlapping conversational dialogue, and winking insider criticism with Robert Altman's The Player, Iñárritu and master cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki deserve a mountain of credit for making this film distinctly their own. (The tracking shots, stitched together to make the film resemble a single take ala Hitchcock's Rope, must have been particularly challenging.) The entire cast delivers outstanding performances, but nobody is better than Keaton, who finally found the perfect vehicle for his unique brand of intense monologuing and half-crazed seriousness. Keaton's involvement with the Batman franchise made him perfect for this role, and the film gets a lot of mileage out of Riggan's arguments with his alter ego. (Norton and Watts get in on the self-referential fun, too, by playing a man who fights in his underwear and a woman prone to self-affirming lesbianism, respectively.) Sure, some of the film's satire doesn't quite stick (Do all critics look like they "licked a homeless guy's ass?" Is Iron Man really no better than Transformers??), but, like the reminder on Riggan's mirror professes, "A thing is a thing, not what is said of that thing."
- Also featuring Amy Ryan and Clark Middleton, the latter of whom played Audrey's husband in the new Twin Peaks.
