Birdman

Birdman (2014)

Producers: Molly Conners, Sarah E. Johnson, Christopher Woodrow, et al.

Director: Alejandro G. Iñárritu

Rated: R for language throughout, some sexual content and brief violence

Runtime: 119 min

Genre: Comedy, Drama

Birdman is the story of a former film superhero's attempt to prove himself as a proper actor. The audience joins the story as final rehearsals are beginning and find that the film's protagonist, Riggan, has spent the last of his money on making his dream project a reality. What follows is a surreal look into the actors' minds, the fight to maintain relevance in a culture that continues to move faster and faster, and the complicated balancing act that raising a family in that world requires.

The direction in this film is amazing and only possible due to the dedication of the cast members. Each scene is composed of multiple pages of script, filmed seamlessly with one camera. Scene breaks only occur at times when they're nearly impossible to notice. This allows the entire movie to feel like one enormous take. Somehow, Alejandro G. Iñárritu managed to keep this from feeling like a gimmick, the audience feels like they're following several different stories; catching the important parts as different characters cross paths. Long shots have always been something I've enjoyed in film, whether its Louis Tully explaining his party in Ghostbusters, Scorcese demonstrating Henry Hill's power and influence in Goodfellas, or John Woo destroying two floors of a hospital in Hard Boiled; these kind of scenes always bring something different to the film they're in. Birdman takes that concept to the next level by flowing through its characters' lives without taking our eyes off what's happening.

The entire cast shines in this movie, but special attention should be paid to Michael Keaton, Edward Norton and Emma Stone. Without Keaton's performance this movie would be a much weaker film. I will admit, Michael Keaton has never struck me as a high caliber actor. He has had brief moments that have jumped out at me, but more often than not those were due to his comedic abilities than his dramatic acting. In Birdman he just IS the character. This may be the result of the similarities between his real-life career arc and his character's; both appeared to be on the fast track for Hollywood immortality following their roles in huge superhero roles, and both suffered enormous career setbacks when they moved on to try something else. Taking one's life experience and translating it into a role would seem to be an important part of the acting process, so those parallels had to be instrumental to his success here. Emma Stone plays Riggan's fresh out of rehab daughter, and while she often faded into the background, according to the other characters something she is accustomed to doing, the moments when she makes her presence known were very powerful. In particular a scene between Keaton's Riggan and Stone's Sam where she perfectly states what his problems apparently are really stood out. Edward Norton also plays a character that could be said to reflect his real world persona, if some reports from various movie sets are to be believed. Here he plays Mike Shiner, a highly talented stage actor that is difficult to work with. He represents the other side of the acting world, never receiving the world wide acclaim that Riggan managed and claiming to be there for the art. In a twist, despite his protestations that he's a real actor to Riggan's phony, given the opportunity to grab the spot light for himself he latches on with both hands.

Throughout most of the film we're led to believe that Riggan may possess actual super powers. There's a fair amount of doubt planted in the audience's mind regarding those powers though, as no one else ever witnesses the things Riggan believes he's capable of doing. It's clear to the audience that we're dealing with a character that's unstable at best, so I had no problem with these sequences. That part of the story is seemingly resolved at one point, only to be cast back into doubt by the end; which brings me to the one major criticism I have of this film. Birdman has two endings. One, the one that I prefer, features Riggan proving his critics wrong, while mocking the way we categorize 'real' actors being the ones that will do anything for a role. At that point I felt satisfied with the movie. Sadly, that wasn't the end, and another ten minute sequence follows that undid what had been accomplished. There are multiple ways to interpret the ending, and in a film that featured so many fantastic elements the viewer could justify nearly any opinion regarding what actually happened. Despite those fantastic elements the film to that point had been rather straight forward, so I'm not inclined to try to infer a lot of secret meanings in the ending. Therefore my interpretation of the finale leaves the film slightly hollow.

Conclusion: Birdman is and amazingly well directed film from Alejandro G. Iñárritu made possible through outstanding performances from nearly every member of the primary cast. I find it hard to say whether the ambiguity of the ending is a good or bad thing when trying to relate it to the rest of the movie, but it can spark interesting conversations, so in that regard it succeeds.

Rating: 8/10