I’ve liked many of the films of Alejandro González Iñárritu, including 21 Grams and Babel, but his work suffers a bit from IMPORTANT MOVIE Syndrome—i.e, the belief that some subjects are simply too grave for humor. (Nonsense, I say.)
So, you can understand my natural skepticism when I saw that Iñárritu’s new film was called BIRDMAN or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance). That long parenthetical is practically a beacon of self-regard. To make matters worse, press materials for the film have specific instructions for how critics are to handle the title. We must refer to the film’s complete title the first time we reference it. From there, we can go nuts and just refer to it as BIRDMAN—all caps, mind you.
Oh boy.
Well, don’t assume or …well, you know the rest. BIRDMAN, while still tackling monumental themes (what is an artist? what is our authentic self? what is the true measure of a man?) is extremely funny. It also happens to be Iñárritu’s best film—and it’s not even close.
Michael Keaton plays actor Riggan Thomson who, 30 years ago, starred as the growly, wisecracking superhero “Birdman” and is now a middle-aged has-been. (Hmm, sound familiar?) He’s looking for a comeback, one that establishes his bona fides as an actor and an artist, so he adapts a Raymond Carver story and sets out to mount it on Broadway, casting himself in the lead role.
BIRDMAN is essentially a backstage drama—with all its attendant mishaps and jitters and catastrophic previews—but the stakes are unusually high. Not just the normal make-or-break of opening night, but a man’s career, his very legacy on the line (also, his finances: Riggan takes out a second mortgage on one of his homes to bankroll the play). The question everyone asks, including Riggan himself: Is this play an expression of Riggan’s true artistic temperament, or is it just a calculated move to make him seem like a man of substance? In other words: Who is the real Riggan? Birdman or this serious actor adapting Carver?
To add to Riggan’s angst: His nearly estranged daughter Sam (Emma Stone), fresh out of rehab, is serving as his personal assistant for the play—and throwing tiny daggers of resentment his way. His current girlfriend (Andrea Riseborough), also an actress in the play, may or may not be pregnant. His leading lady (Naomi Watts) is massively insecure, in constant need of affirmation, especially since the play’s newest castmember, the cocky method actor Mike Shiner (Edward Norton), is her boyfriend.
There’s also a fair amount of magic realism, if that’s your thing. Riggan can’t seem to get the voice of Birdman, who talks to him from a movie poster on his dressing room wall, out of his head. And what Birdman is saying is, “Screw these theater ponces! You were a movie star! The king of the world!” Also, Riggan may or may not be able to levitate. So there’s that.
Iñárritu films all of this, ingeniously, in what appears to be one continuous take. It’s a trick of course, but it adds to the sense of chaos and urgency—people are constantly on the go, parts are constantly in motion. The soundtrack is mostly just a jazzy drum, sometimes a jaunty snare, sometimes a cacophony, with cymbals.
The acting, across the board, is marvelous. Unlike Riggan, Michael Keaton was a real actor before he donned the Batsuit, proving to be a manic and appealingly weird presence in movies like Beetlejuice and Night Shift. And he had a dramatic side too, as evidenced in the little-seen (but quite good) Clean and Sober. I actually have no idea why he dropped off the radar—maybe because he doesn’t quite have a leading man’s chiseled jaw? Or maybe he had some personal reasons, who knows? I won’t tell you if Riggan achieves his goal of an artistic comeback—that would be a spoiler—but I can say that Keaton is excellent here, revealing all of Riggan’s contradictions, his inflated ego and God complex mixed with his crushing self-doubt and self-loathing.
In some ways, both he and Norton are playing exaggerated versions of themselves. Norton has always been perceived as the wildly talented but difficult-to-work-with method actor. Here he riffs on that, playing Mike Shiner as the kind of actor who insists that he drink real gin on stage, who gets annoyed that Riggan is using an obviously fake gun in one scene (“Have some self respect!” he barks), and who can’t get it up in the bedroom but gets aroused during a sex scene on stage. (What he’s really turned on by is himself.) It’s a showy, scene-stealing part that Norton rips into with appropriate gusto.
In an interview, Emma Stone said she felt a bit cowed by the heavyweights she was working with, and was afraid she was going to be the one to screw things up. She had nothing to worry about. She is utterly convincing as both the angry little girl who secretly craves her father’s approval and the sexy coquette who seduces Shiner, most likely just to piss her father off. A scene where Sam tells her father off, calling him an irrelevant dinosaur, is one of the film’s most devastating.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the good work Zach Galifianakis does as Riggan’s best friend and lawyer, an LA-style hustler who will stop at nothing to make sure the show goes on. He’s playing way against type here, but he disappears completely into the role.
BIRDMAN is far from flawless. It has one character, a (made-up) theater critic for The New York Times, who seems to exist solely so Iñárritu can express his disdain for my profession. (The critic sees Riggan as an unworthy movie star sullying her precious stage—he rips into her about her lack of understanding of technique or process, and how easy it is to critique rather than create). And, as I mentioned, some of the film’s flights of fancy are too, well, fanciful (and flightful, for that matter) for my taste.
But why quibble? I loved the veritable banquet of cinematic delights BIRDMAN or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) served up. This is the work of a filmmaker completely in control of his gifts. I left the theater soaring.