I didn’t get a chance to screen Birdman: Or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) until the night before the Oscars, by which time the movie already seemed firmly locked down as the Best Picture recipient. So I was a little leery of being able to view the film detached from all of the impending ceremony and recognition.
I needn’t have worried. Birdman is an unhinged and euphoric show business satire that careens into the audience’s perceptions with complete abandon. Echoing Times Square’s transformation from grindhouse to galleria, modern Broadway theater drives box office by positioning movie actors as the audience draw. Riggan Thomson (Michael Keaton) is the former star of a comic book superhero “Birdman” movie franchise. Like Keaton’s own reign as Batman for Tim Burton, that success is way back in the rearview mirror. With his name recognition as one of his last remaining assets, Riggan’s dumped the last of his savings – along with his soul – into mounting a serious, “meaningful” adaptation of Raymond Carver’s “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love,” a last gasp effort to leave his mark and regain both notoriety and respect – both from the world and for himself. To feel relevant – to matter.
When circumstances require finding a new cast member just before preview night, a famous but equally narcissistic method actor (Edward Norton) joins the ensemble, and Birdman ratchets into a hilarious farce of actors, ego and the theater itself. Norton is phenomenal, and gives new meaning to the notion of an actor who only comes alive in the presence of an audience, who fuels himself by turning every interaction into a confrontation: “Do you have any idea who walked these boards before you? Geraldine Page, Marlon Brando, Helen Hayes, Jason Robards... And now you.” As Riggan’s daughter/de facto assistant, Emma Stone redefines herself in a terrific performance as a Lohanesque rehab grad, frayed and frustrated at finding herself in service to her detached and unravelling father.
As preview performances stagger towards opening night, egos – and realities – collide and swerve with unpredictable, escalating delight.
Director (and co-writer) Alejandro González Iñárritu (Babel, Biutiful) sets the entire film in the crumbling confines of the St. James Theater and nearby environs, partnering with Children of Men and Gravity cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki to make the entire film seem like one long, surreal, delirious dream-take. Lubezki is a miracle worker and spins his penchant for long, uninterrupted takes to dizzying new heights here, in a way that never feels overtly conscious to the viewer.
Birdman is a triumphant, farcical lit fuse of ego and desperation. A playful love letter to actors everywhere. As the voice in Riggan’s head begins to fracture reality and the surreal lines between the imaginary and the theatrical begin to blur, Iñárritu lets both the characters and the audience share a sense of liberation and take flight.
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