I have been complaining for a long time that Hollywood has no original ideas left. Boy, was I wrong. I must say, while I have seen the techniques of this film before, I have never seen their combination pulled off so deftly.
Michael Keaton plays Riggan, a washed-up, superhero actor who is trying to overcome several obstacles to produce a Broadway play that he wrote to restore some of his former prestige, or at least relevance. He has left a trail of wreckage from his past that he is trying to fix, as well as overcome all the problems that occur just before a play premiers. He is trying to repair his relationship with his estranged daughter Sam (Emma Stone) as well as his former wife Laura (Andrea Riseborough). He, along with his best friend Jake (an almost unrecognizable Zach Galifinackis) have to deal with accidents and hiccups to bring out a play that is teetering on failure before it even starts. After a freak accident injures their leading man the day before the first preview, they hire Mike (Edward Norton), an incredibly gifted, popular, but self-centered actor who may destroy the show. Finally, they must deal with the biggest problem, will anyone actually come to it?
Writer/Director Alejandro Gonzáles Iñárritu has pulled off something great here. Mark my words, you will see him win either best Director or Screenplay from this film. The film, as I said before, is all technique. It is a mishmash of Waiting for Guffman, Rope, and just about every screwball comedy you have ever seen with a heavy dose of pathos for atmosphere. The movie is told with everything from aplomb to zest. It starts slow and deliberate, but as the pressure mounts, the movie's action and dialogue gets more and more frenzied to by the time we hit the climax, almost everyone is yelling and running. One of the neat filmmaking techniques in here is that it is told as if it was caught in one long tracking take, which was done previously by none other than the great Hitchcock himself in Rope. This continuously moving camera gives a documentary feel to the story.
The actual story takes place over about a week and melds fantasy and reality seamlessly, almost too much so. It is sometimes very difficult to know where reality ends and fantasy begins in this story, especially in its enigmatic Lady or the Tiger-ish ending. We see most of the story through Riggan's eyes and his cinematic superhero alter ego Birdman, whom we hear speak to Riggan in his mind. Riggan also has superpowers that manifest themselves during the film. Is he really Birdman, or is it all in his mind? We never really know since no one sees him do these things until the end when Sam sees him flying? We don't know. The film is never clear. Keaton's performance in this is so good. He should have had an Oscar 26 years ago with the movie Clean and Sober, and he has never turned in a bad role from Mr. Mom to Beetlejuice to Pacific Heights to Jackie Brown and yes, even Batman, which this film unapologetically references through Birdman. He will no doubt be nominated, but I don't know who else was better than him this year. Maybe this is finally his time. It is long overdue. But Keaton isn't the only great performances here. Galifinackis is wonderfully restrained, a welcome change to his man-child character of The Hangover. Emma Stone is the perfect, cynical and damaged suicide girl with just the right amount of vulnerability. And Edward Norton is as amazing as ever with his Method-immersing Mike.
The hardest part for me in this film, however, is what it is condemning or extolling. It is a love story to the theater and a poison pen letter to its illegitimate bigger brother, cinema. It seems to extol the theater as the place for real artists, and film as the toxic dump where art goes to die to be replaced by commerce. Yet it also condemns the theater for giving into film's siren song of cash by taking on the very stories of film it is supposed to be above. This is a not-so-subtle dig at recent Broadway fare like The Lion King, The Producers, and most obviously, Spider-Man: The Musical. The attitude of the theater crowd is reflected in Tabitha, the aging theater critic. She is determined to kill Riggan's play in its crib for no other reason other than it stands for everything she hates; from privileged actors who have no business on Broadway with "real" actors, the cheapening of art in favor of stylistic themes in theater, to the cynical cash-grab from plays that have no artistic merit from her eyes.
This is the classic conflict of the art versus the pop world. What is more important--art or commerce? The answer, of course, is both, and those who understand that are usually branded as sell-outs. The "serious" art world is very small and pompous and in love with its self-perceived ability to understand things the philistines cannot. That is why great artists like Norman Rockwell to Andy Warhol to Banksy will never be considered great artists by the arbiters of taste because they appeal to the common person's sensibilities, and that offends them. That is why they prefer The Iceman Cometh to Jackson Pollack to Federico Fellinni to Miles Davis as opposed to Phantom of the Opera to Stan Lee to Alfred Hitchcock to Lady Gaga.
Ultimately, Birdman is a really good film, almost great. It has something interesting to say in a very interesting way. It is trying to be big like a blockbuster while keeping its art film soul. It will not be everybody's cup of tea, but I, for one loved it an would recommend it to just about anyone who wants something meaty to chew on thematic-wise. For all you film geeks out there, there is a lot to love as well with the aforementioned technique. I think you will be surprised. Check it out.
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