So I finally saw the the Alejandro G
Make that I finally saw the 2015 Independent Spirt Award-nominated Birdman, the latest from writer-director Iñárritu (Biutiful, Babel), who like, actually titled the film Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance), OKRRR.
And I gotta say: What are people talking about?
Allow me to elaborate.
Michael Keaton stars as Riggan Thomson, a has-been Hollywood-blockbuster star who used to sit on top of the world as the bankable lead of this seminal franchise based on this Birdman superhero, right. Like Keaton himself (you remember he was Batman before Ben, Christian, George, and Val, yeah?), Riggan decided to hang up his cowl and wings in the early ’90s to do...som’in’ else. Anything other than Birdman.
Now, this is but one of the most meta elements about this big-screen proposition. Birdman is a massively meta film, one that concerns itself with an actor attempting a comeback more than 20 years after his heyday by mounting a Broadway adaptation of Raymond Carver’s short story “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love.” Ambitious doesn’t even begin to cut, and it immediately becomes evident that Riggan is in over his head.
One of the biggest gripes I’ve heard about the film is that, for a project set in the world of the New York stage, it is rather quite out of touch with the intricate ins and outs of the behind-the-scenes drama it engenders.
The thing is I don’t think that Iñárritu necessarily meant to deliver an exposé of the busyness of Broadway. See, I cannot help but believe that he was going for something more cerebral and surreal, and that he succeeded excellently, especially when it comes to the latter aspect of it all. Birdman haunts Riggan. Meaning, the memories of what the character represents – how it was...the good ol’ times – are inescapable: he is consumed, not only by regret, since he’s not amounted to everything he’d hoped for after calling it quits and coming out (in his mind) as an actor ready to work on his craft, but by his ego as well.
And that haunting is both figurative and, as you can see in the pic here, literal.
Birdman has affected Riggan’s every relationship: he has an ex played by Amy Ryan (they have managed to stay friendly to each other, even though it’s clear he was an ass to her back in the day), a fresh-outta-rehab somewhat-resentful daughter (Emma Stone) who works as his assistant (and hates it), and a lawyer (Zach Galifianakis) who stands in as a sort of BFF-enabler (you know that he cares, but you also get the vibe that he cares about his commission more). What’s more, Riggan is having a tumultuous affair with one of his leading ladies (Andrea Riseborough; Naomi Watts portrays another, an insecure sort), and his new leading man (Edward Norton) is a difficult Great White Way artiste who may or may not have just gotten fired from a high-profile gig.
Oops. I forgot to give ya a Meta Alert! for that one.
There is a lot going on in Riggan’s universe, as you can imagine, and Iñárritu and his Oscar-winning cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki (Gravity) place us in the thick of it since they shot the film in one seemingly continuous long take. The effect, when combined with jazz drummer Antonio Sánchez’s percussion-happy score, is frenetic, yet super-immersive.
Birdman, which is also up for several Gotham Independent Film Awards, is, at its core, a insightful meditation on modern-day fame, and serves as imaginative commentary on the debate and mutual exclusivity between being an actor and being a star.
Thanks to Keaton (with special judos to Norton and Stone), the film soars, even if its flights of fancy sometimes prove a bit too much.
My Rating ***
Photo: Fox Searchlight Pictures.
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