The filmmaking of Alejandro González Iñárritu
has always been a tough sell, mostly because of his dubious “hyperlink” dramas
— 21 Grams, Biutiful, and the notorious Babel, which wrecked that tedious
subgenre beyond all repair. But things can change. Suddenly a shaft of sunlight
is shining down on the Mexican international auteur. Birdman, Iñárritu’s fifth released
feature since Amores Perros in
2000, is some sort of miracle.
The scenario — concocted by the team of Iñárritu,
Nicolás Giacobone,
Alexander Dinelaris, and Armando Bo — takes us
backstage at a Broadway theater in New York, where an actor-playwright-director
named Riggan Thomson (Michael Keaton) is busily
lashing together a stage show called What
We Talk About When We Talk About Love, his adaptation of short stories by
author Raymond Carver. The project has multiple implications for Riggan, who once upon a time was famous for a series of
fantasy movies playing a superhero named Birdman. Now his brand has faded and
he’s broke, balding, insomniac, drinking heavily à la Carver), and badly in
need of a late-career boost. However, inside his head, he hears the voice of
Birdman and possesses magical powers. What better time to sprout wings and fly?
Never mind that Keaton’s real-life career trajectory roughly
mirrors Riggan’s. The fast-talking,
inside-joke-filled screenplay fits the former Batman (Keaton played him twice)
like a black leather driving glove. Has-been Riggan
has everything invested in his new play and seemingly everything is stacked
against him. Between accidents and nervous breakdowns, it’s a new show every
night. Of the large cast of actors and hangers-on caught by Iñárritu’s
constantly gliding camera, only a couple actually
believe in Riggan — his ex-wife Sylvia (Amy
Ryan), who drops by occasionally to chide him, and his daughter Sam (Emma
Stone), the classic Hollywood spoiled brat, paid to hang around backstage
smoking weed and kvetching.
Everyone else is too busy tending to his or her personal agenda
to care much about the star’s problems, especially Mike Shiner (Edward Norton),
a fill-in actor and Broadway veteran who gleefully script-doctors the play for
the harried Riggan. Keaton and Norton’s rapid-fire,
semi-antagonistic badinage hits the heights early and lights up the movie.
Their bickering encapsulates the ancient enmity between “The Theatah” and Hollywood, plus plenty of old-fashioned
upstage-downstage showbiz rivalry. Mike’s drunken barroom
lecture to Riggan on the craft of acting is
interrupted by a pair of fans asking for a Birdman selfie.
When the proles blow past Mike to hug Riggan, the look on the younger actor’s face could melt a
glacier.
Each actor in the movie gets at least a chunk of the arch,
gossip-drunk dialogue. Zach Galifianakis carves a
niche for himself as Jake, the long-suffering producer. Also in the play’s cast
are Lesley, Mike’s willing prank victim (Naomi Watts); and Riggan’s
hard-luck girlfriend Laura (Andrea Riseborough).
Lurking on the periphery like a martini-drinking vulture is drama critic
Tabitha Dickinson (Lindsay Duncan, dripping venom), who vows to Riggan, “I’m gonna
kill your play,” before she even sees opening night. The operating philosophy
is that this Hollywood charlatan is going to be taught a lesson, New York
style. Meanwhile, Mike comes on to Sam on the theater rooftop. She reveals
she’s not as shallow as she behaves. Stone shows us depths here that were only
hinted at in her previous outings. For all the frantic camerawork, the scenario
confines itself to the tight space of the theater and its surrounding block. We
can’t imagine anywhere else it needs to go.
Keaton’s eternal antsy-ness is on magnificent display. Riggan’s interior monologues; his on- and off-stage rants;
the walk through Times Square in his underwear, waving a wig at tourists; his
endless Twitter jokes (every character in the film despises social media, even
as they constantly keep tabs on themselves); the sweep of Antonio Sanchez’s
orchestral score as Birdman wings it over Manhattan — all exhilarating
and grandly funny.
Gratifyingly, director Iñárritu himself
seems to be having fun. What a relief it must have been to wind up Keaton,
Norton, Stone, and rest of the actors in a bitchy, high-spirited showbiz
satire, instead of traipsing through another doom-laden, hyperlink guilt-fest.
The director had talented actors working for him in those movies, but Birdman is different. Despite its minor
faults, it’s an urbane picnic of histrionics and deadpan laughs. Maybe Iñárritu should team up with this gang of screenwriters
again.
