Runtime: 1 hour, 59 minutes
Rating: R
Director: Alejandro González Iñárritu
Quick Impressions:
Why did Michael Keaton disappear from starring screen roles for so many years? (Was he waiting on a third “Beetlejuice”? That can take a while.) I have no idea where he went or why, but I’m glad he’s back. I always liked his Batman. He played Bruce Wayne as an actual guy instead of the virtual nonentity the character became in the late 90s after Keaton left the role. (I’m not blaming Val Kilmer and George Clooney. Frankly, I don’t know where to place the blame. It’s like when Keaton left the franchise, they quit writing a part for Bruce Wayne, and instead focused on putting together an awesome bat suit and a teeming cast of villains.)
I’ve been bursting with excitement about Birdman all year, so kudos to its marketing campaign. The film has been generating tons of early Oscar Buzz, and its previews make it look so cool. (Part of the credit for that goes to the ear-catching, drum-based score. Drums make anything seem cooler. I would seem a hundred times cooler right now if I hired my own personal drummer to improvise jazzy background riffs every time I opened my mouth.)
This fall our house seems to have become a revolving door of plague and contagion, so I wasn’t completely sure I’d be healthy enough to see Birdman this week, but fortunately, I found a time that worked.
And I liked the movie a lot. Keaton certainly deserves an Oscar nomination for his work here. I would expect several Oscar nominations, in fact. (It’s particularly outstanding in terms of cinematography and score.) Picture and director nominations should certainly be in the discussion, too. I liked Iñárritu’s earlier film Babel quite a lot, but I think I like Birdman a bit better, maybe because I found some storylines in Babel far more compelling than others. (That bit with Adriana Barraza and the children I could watch again and again.)
Emma Stone gives the performance of her career in this film. I’ve liked Stone since I first saw her in Superbad, but she’s never had the opportunity to give a performance like this before, and she’s pretty phenomenal. Frankly I’d be stunned if she doesn’t get an Oscar nomination for this, and I could easily imagine her taking home the award. (There are tons of performances I haven’t seen yet, of course, but Stone is really good here, and Best Supporting Actress often goes to an emerging female star about her age.)
The Good:
Visually the film is just stunning. Not only is every shot beautiful (and doubly compelling because it’s slightly unusual), but Birdman is also visually rich because of some really fascinating symbolism.
Birdman does so much with mirrors, and I’m a big sucker for shots involving mirrors. On a purely aesthetic level, photography involving mirrors is just fun and cool.
But in this film, there’s a reason for the mirrors. We have a protagonist who hears and sees his alter-ego Birdman almost all the time. So we have a protagonist with a split personality, giving rise to themes of doubling and duality throughout the movie.
Not only do we get lots of shots involving mirrors and numerous scenes of Keaton talking to himself, but Birdman also gives us several scenes of two characters in dialogue, and—even more significantly—entire scenes that seem to pair with other scenes.
Several times, as I watched the movie, I would catch myself thinking, This is a cool moment, only to discover another scene later on that served as that cool moment’s counterpart.
As I said, I love duality and doubling and mirrors, so this aspect of the film really worked for me.
The performances are all quite strong, too. A number of them deserve some Oscar attention, and even the ones that don’t quite merit that are still fantastic. (Amy Ryan, for example, is wonderful in a small role as the ex-wife of Keaton’s character Riggan Thomson, but the character probably isn’t on screen enough to get awards attention.)
And, of course, the casting is clever. I would hope that I don’t need to say anything about Michael Keaton as Birdman. And I think most people will also appreciate seeing Edward Norton cast as an actor who is “difficult” on set because he can’t resist rewriting all his lines and getting in arguments about how his scenes should be played. Frankly I’m surprised they cast Emma Stone as Riggan’s daughter instead of getting Lindsay Lohan. (I love Stone’s performance, but Lohan’s presence would have been one more in-joke, and might have been particularly appropriate since she did appear as Michael Keaton’s daughter in Herbie Fully Loaded. Maybe casting Emma Stone (who has often been compared to Lohan) still gets the point across. (And Stone is phenomenal in the role.)
Maybe the best thing about the entire film, though, is the score. The driving beat of the virtually non-stop drum solo sets the scene so beautifully. We feel the frantic, frenetic energy backstage at the theater as everyone scrambles around trying to prepare for opening night. Better still, the relentless drums give an urgency to all the action, and seem to mirror Riggan Thomson’s interior state of panic and distress. The world is crowding in around him demanding results, and Thomson begins retreating into an interior world (which offers little comfort) in response to all the stress and pressure. The drum score is perfect and pretty unusual. I hope it wins the Oscar.
Most Oscar Worthy Moment, Michael Keaton/Emma Stone:
When Riggan and his daughter Sam take turns railing at each other, both Keaton and Stone do some of their best acting to that point. I particularly like Michael Keaton here because in the presence of his daughter, Riggan becomes so stripped down and honest. He’s admitting something true that he’s been holding back from everyone. He admits it to Sam probably because he believes that when she understands that (the motivating secret truth), suddenly his behavior will make sense to her, and she’ll give him some of the sympathy he feels he deserves. But that is not what happens. Because he’s pushed to his limits, Riggan is very self-absorbed, and so is Sam. When he bares his soul to her, he doesn’t begin to suspect that she may be in a similarly self-absorbed, distressed place herself and incapable of giving him the sympathy he craves.
Emma Stone, meanwhile, has never before had the opportunity to give a crazy, impassioned, raw, volatile speech like this, and she absolutely nails it. (The odd camera angle helps, too. She’s doing some great acting, but it seems even better because of the highly stylized presentation.)
I’d be surprised if Keaton doesn’t get a nomination for Best Actor, and based on what I’ve seen so far this year, Stone could actually win Best Supporting Actress (an award that often goes to an attractive star about her age).
Most Oscar Worthy Moment, Emma Stone/Edward Norton:
Although Stone’s rant at Keaton is great (and practically tailor-made to double as a clip at awards shows), I think I like her even better on the roof with Edward Norton. It takes talent to make a crazy, intense rant work on screen, but sometimes it takes even more talent to bring the same compelling intensity to an ordinary conversation. She’s immensely compelling in this scene, as is Norton, whose character reveals an unexpected side here. These scenes also look fantastic. They’re just beautifully framed and shot.
Most Oscar Worthy Moment, Edward Norton/Michael Keaton:
One of the film’s most striking visual sequences happens early when Mike and Riggan walk down the street together, and Norton’s character obnoxiously berates Keaton’s for not understanding/belonging in the world of the Broadway stage. Norton dominates this scene.
Then later, we get a fantastically physical, energetic fight when Riggan attacks Mike. This scene is like the early scene’s complement, and this time, Keaton dominates.
Most Oscar Worthy Moment, Naomi Watts/Edward Norton:
I doubt Watts will get a nomination for Best Supporting Actress (because of the way her character gets phased out in the last segment of the movie), but she’s quite brilliant in the sex scene on stage that takes an alarming, sinister turn. Watts is fantastic in this moment, and in its aftermath. (And, of course, the scene is quite brilliant, too, because the moment is supposed to showcase Riggan’s performance as a man who feels reduced to nothing,in part because of the actions of Mike’s character. So it’s pretty great that Mike upstages this moment and makes it all about him.) (There’s also some pretty great visual symbolism here if you consider how Mike’s character ruins Riggan’s character’s life, and how Mike manages to upstage Riggan.)
Best Action Sequence:
The off-stage fight between Mike and Riggan and the onstage struggle between Lesley and Mike both make for very compelling action sequences, as does the “Birdman” moment near the end.
But my personal favorite scene involving action is the moment when Riggan’s character starts smashing everything in his dressing room/office. This scene is especially great because first we see how this all looks to Riggan, and then we get a slightly different take on what’s happening from the point of view of Jake.
Best Scene/Best Scene Visually:
The scene most destined to become iconic is surely Riggan’s desperate sprint through Times Square in his tighty whities. Even in the film’s previews, this moment stands out. It’s like a visual metaphor for Riggan’s entire dilemma. A washed up movie star (known for making silly action blockbusters), Riggan is used to being in the spotlight. People recognize him constantly and follow him around everywhere. But what he wants is to be taken seriously as an actor. He’s trying to reconnect with an important moment from his youth by pouring all his time, money, energy, and talent into an experimental play he adapted from a short story. The play is now opening on Broadway, and Riggan is out of his element and feeling tons of pressure. (He’s also losing his mind.)
The sprint through Times Square has a nightmarish quality. In context, it’s every actor’s #2 nightmare (#1 of course, is forgetting your lines onstage). And in general, it’s every human’s nightmare (to be completely exposed and, consequently, ridiculed).
(The scene is great, too, because of what happens with it later. Riggan feels totally vulnerable, exposed, powerless, off-balance, here, and yet what happens because of this moment actually works in his favor (as explained by Emma Stone’s character). This is a clear indication that Riggan no longer understands the world he’s in. What means one thing to the outside world feels like something else entirely to him. He’s drowning in life. He doesn’t feel he belongs in the world.)
Taken together, this scene and the later “Birdman” scene through the streets of New York reveal the warring states of Riggan’s tormented mind. At some times, the tighty whitie sprint represents his self-concept. But then at other times, he’s Birdman.
Basically, you could juxtapose these two scenes (without even dialogue or context, although I’d keep the music because it adds a lot), and you’d have the entire film in miniature.
The Negatives:
This is the kind of film I’d want to view multiple times before taking it to task for any perceived shortcomings. I’m not implying that it’s hard to follow or dense in terms of plot. But (compared to what American audiences usually get) it is surprising and risky and outside the box. I almost said that it’s not formulaic at all, but that would be massively overstating its originality because though Birdman features a novel and (deliberately) jarring presentation of elements, those elements are actually fairly familiar. Just because we’re seeing them in kind of a scrambled up way doesn’t mean we’ve never encountered them before.
Imagine this. You stroll into a restaurant expecting an ordinary, casual meal, and suddenly you’re ambushed by a mime on a unicycle shooting random stuff at you out of a miniature cannon. Imagine how you’d react. Lettuce? What? A slice of cheese? How bizarre! Pickles? This is getting crazy! A bun? Tomato slices? A squirt of ketchup AND a dollop of mustard? Whoa! It’s hard to keep up now. I have no idea where this is going! And then suddenly it finally hits you—an all-beef patty, right in the face, and you realize, Hold on, this is just a hamburger.
Birdman addresses themes, develops characters, and explores concepts that are familiar (nearly universally familiar). But it presents them in novel ways, with jarring music, disorienting camera angles, surreal sequences.
To me it just seems like one of those films you want to watch more than once before you start making grand pronouncements on it. I felt that way most recently after watching The Great Beauty. Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing also demanded repeat viewings. After watching it the first time, I thought in bemusement, “What?!!” But after re-watching it countless times (sometimes with the sound off, sometimes with particular goals in mind), making up discussion questions and essay assignments about it, having exciting talks about it with students, I finally decided that it’s one of the greatest films I’ve ever seen. But my immediate reaction to the first viewing was mute bafflement.
In Birdman, the last half hour of the film is by far the most challenging. It definitely held my attention, and it also confused me. As I first started watching the movie, I thought absent-mindedly, “This is interesting. I wonder how it will end. Surely it won’t do that because with a set-up like this, that would be way too obvious.” But then as the film began drawing to a close I realized in surprise, “Okay, well, I guess it is going to do that, after all. That seems like a surprisingly predictable move for such an off-kilter film, but at least it makes sense and will bring a sense of closure to the audience.” But then I was wrong again, watching the screen and noticing in surprise, “I guess it didn’t do that, after all. So what is it doing? What will happen now? Oh now is it going to…What?!!”
I didn’t find the final scene very satisfying after one viewing. (In fact, for me, the last half hour or so was the least interesting part of the movie.) But this isn’t my first trip to the movies, and I can guarantee right now that after I’ve seen Birdman two or three more times, I will have a much more fully formed appreciation and understanding of what happens at the end.
The ending is not actually doing anything that strange. It’s just that I don’t know quite what it’s doing or why it’s bothering to “do” anything. Why can’t it just be normal like other movies? (That’s not a flippant question. There must be an artistically defensibly reason to incorporate the surrealism and the mystery because a similar story—albeit with a different feel—could be told in a more grounded, straightforward manner and probably with much less expense.) So I guess what I’m saying is that I’m not sure I get the ending of the movie. I have the feeling that after I watch it several more times, I’m likely to either love or hate it, but right now, I’m only capable of staring out the window and going, “Hmmm…Well…????”
As Birdman started veering dangerously into Black Swan territory, I wasn’t sure what to do with the increasing surrealism of the film. I neither loved it nor hated it…yet, but on a first watch I definitely preferred the first part of the film, the part that involved more characters, more humor, and (the way I see it) more hope. Everything is open-ended in the beginning. By the time we start heading somewhere and close off other options, Birdman started feeling a bit claustrophobic and desperate to me. That’s probably deliberate, a mood cultivated to mirror the inner turmoil of the protagonist. Still, in terms of simple enjoyment, I liked watching the first part of the film better.
As someone personally fascinated with metadrama, I also wish we had more of an idea of how Riggan’s play works as a whole, the shape of the play. Do the characters’ roles in the play-within-a-play help us to connect the dots and realize things otherwise left unsaid about the movie characters? (I suppose I need to read the short story.) I feel like most characters in the film are so unrealized. They’re tantalizingly fascinating, but largely incomplete. We’re introduced to some fascinating people in well-acted, intense vignettes, but then we never really move closer to these characters, we never get to see them grow or to understand fully what motivates them.
Michael Keaton and Emma Stone have the best parts by far, and there’s something delicious going on with Edward Norton’s role. (It’s like Norton makes his character far more interesting and complex than he has any right to be, just as Mike (his character) does in the play).
Norton’s Mike doesn’t seem like a supporting character. Instead, he’s more like a competing main character that we see from afar because we’re following the protagonist. Mike is useful as a foil for Riggan, but the two never seem to be working together within the same narrative. Mike is too big (in his own mind, at least) not to be the star of his own story. Both Mike and Riggan are far too tormented and self-absorbed to care much about the other’s story. And ultimately, the story we are watching belongs to Riggan, so we move away from Mike. This isn’t a bad thing, necessarily, but it does lead to some potential disappointment for the audience when the (rather fascinating) character of Mike is suddenly dropped (like many others) as Riggan’s journey becomes too inwardly focused to bother with the concerns of people who don’t really matter to him.
Edward Norton has enough presence in the movie to generate Oscar buzz, so the phasing out of his character as the movie winds down is not really a problem, but other characters (most notably the actresses played by Naomi Watts and especially Andrea Riseborough) fade away before they’ve ever been properly explored. I would call this less a failure of the film than a frustrating aspect since this shift of focus away from supporting characters happens for a reason. The protagonist turns inward increasingly as the movie draws to a close, so of course we’re going to see less of his lead actress and his girlfriend as he focuses increasingly on his inner self and the personally meaningful elements of his past (e.g. his memories of life with his ex-wife and his relationship with his daughter).
I was slightly disappointed to see the characters played by Watts and Riseborough so abruptly dropped. (By the end of the film, I felt like I understood Amy Ryan’s character better than Riseborough’s. I’m sure that’s because she means more to Riggan, but it still seems slightly odd because Ryan isn’t even in the movie that much.) Obviously, the story is not about them, but they’re allowed a misleading amount of character development in the first part of the film. Initially, Birdman gives us a hectic, backstage view of a troubled production, and we spend a fair amount of time with all the characters. So when suddenly the movie becomes all Riggan all the time, the shift is noticeable and slightly uncomfortable.
Now granted, this movie is called Birdman, and it is clearly about Riggan Thomson and his (surprisingly complicated) relationship with Birdman, the character he famously played. So I don’t fault it for becoming increasingly enmeshed with his point-of-view and shaped by his narrowing focus. That’s actually quite well done. We experience the story as Riggan does. But at the beginning, before he’s completely withdrawn from the world around him, Riggan interacts with such interesting characters, and, in fact, the movie sometimes shows us entire scenes of them interacting when Riggan is not even present. So it’s just mildly frustrating to see them all dropped in the final act.
Now some characters don’t need more development because we only really see them in their professional aspect, such as Jake (Zach Galifianakis) and the theater critic (Lindsay Duncan). (For me, the theater critic was a slightly frustrating character, though. It’s hard to figure out exactly what motivates her and what she’s all about since by the time we get a long speech from her, we’re seeing her from the point of view of Riggan, who clearly does not understand her. By this point in the film, Riggan is definitely quite detached from everyone but his own concept of those who have meant most to him over the years. His focus is inward, so, naturally his interaction with the theater critic is a bit bemusing for the audience. She seems slightly odd, but I have a feeling it’s because the protagonist interacting with her is in such crisis at this point.)
Once again, let me be clear. Focusing more on Riggan (to the exclusion of the other characters) is not really a flaw of the film. It’s a deliberate and thoughtful choice. I’m only talking about it in the “negatives” section because it is a choice that by necessity marginalizes some to-that-point intriguing characters, and for that reason, it may frustrate some viewers. Not everybody is going to be able to love Birdman’s final act shift into full blown surrealism. We’ve had hints of Riggan’s “powers” (or psychosis?) from the first scene, but in early parts of the movie we also see the play from points of view other than Riggan’s, whereas by the final act, we’re really only left with Riggan and Birdman (and maybe some token appearances by the actor’s ex-wife and daughter).
Apart from these frustrations (which are a product of the movie making a conscious choice—you can’t have your cake and eat it, too), I have only one minor complaint about Birdman. The rehab toilet paper game rang rather false to me. Then again, I’ve never been in rehab. Maybe that’s what they do there. If so, I hope I never end up in rehab because I swear I would use that toilet paper to strangle the person ordering me to make little marks on it. Is the idea that it gives you something to do with your hands and nervous energy? It really seems like annoying busy work to me. Then again, Sam definitely seems to find it useful, or, anyway, she keeps doing it on her own time. I find that hard to believe, but I guess sometimes you’ve got to do something to fill the time.
Overall:
Birdman is not a movie that everyone will love. But I suspect that its distinctive, innovative visuals and score will get it plenty of Oscar attention. Add to those marked strengths a number of superior performances (by established stars) and a storyline and themes that should really resonate with actors (particularly aging actors), and surely you’ve got a movie that the Academy will want to reward.
So I expect multiple Oscar nominations for this film, and it should also find favor among those who strongly prefer foreign and arthouse films because it’s definitely not a run-of-the-mill, by-the-numbers Hollywood blockbuster.
If you’re a fan of Michael Keaton, Emma Stone, or Edward Norton, you definitely need to watch this movie immediately. It’s tremendously engaging and unusual, and even its flaws are nothing but the flipside of its strengths. After this, they should use CGI to make Michael Keaton look younger and actually make the original Birdman movie, complete with scenes showing the other characters’ reaction to that movie. You know Edward Norton would want a part in that.