Birdman, this year’s big Oscar contender is directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu who has brought everything a director technically could to a film. It features an interesting plot, great characters and performances, great editing and an excellent score. Iñárritu's only fault, if you can call it that, is that he fills it with too much leading to chaos and a sense of manipulation. It's overindulgence in trickery makes it very entertaining but also fall just short of greatness.
Birdman is still a brilliant work of craftsmanship that the makers had a ton of fun crafting and the viewers will have enough fun watching as long as they can keep up. It is masterfully shot and acted and skillfully directed. It is entertaining in an unsettling way. Edgy, kind of claustrophobic and loud, theater-like, almost punishingly so. It is modern, meta and brimming with references of all kinds - pop, cultural and self. It is a parody of everything and nothing. From a technical standpoint it may be one of the best movies in a very long time.
Birdman is a story of a lot of stories held together by Michael Keaton as Riggin, an actor way over his prime who once played a popular superhero called Birdman. He is now trying to revive his career or find meaning in his life by producing and starring an intellectual Broadway play. The theme is a tongue-in-cheek reference to Keaton’s real character in the ‘original’ Batman movies from 1989 and 92, often credited for rebooting the modern drove of superhero movies.
Things are not easy for Riggin. He hates the social media and modern culture of ‘viral’ hits and yet he must depend on it for any success. He hates his past and yet, he must employ it to get this project going forward. He is short on money. He is haunted by the ghost of his past whispering raspy homilies goading him to break out. He may or may not have remnant super powers. His sense of self-worth is vacillating at best. His cast is a wreck. A girlfriend who may or may not be pregnant, played surprisingly well by Andrea Riseborough. A daughter, fresh out of rehab played better than expected by an out-of-character Emma Stone who has some of the best lines in the film. A co-star actress who is a nervous wreck, played brilliantly by an edgy, nervous Naomi Watts, who continuous to surprise by her emoting range. And then there is a freak, controlling, insane method actor, played, in one of the film’s key self-references, incredibly well by Edward Norton. A strangely comforting ex-wife played with a characteristic cool by Amy Ryan. And Zach Galifianakis, in probably his best film role to-date, as the hapless producer and friend, desperately trying to keep the circus going. And a New York Times critic who wants to bury the play before it even opens. A complex mix of chaos and character.
Iñárritu is previously known for making laborious polemical vignettes like Amores Perros, 21 Grams and Babel. Birdman is significantly different. It certainly has a message but it doesn't let the message weigh the film down.
Iñárritu brings a lot to bear and should win best director Oscar. Apart from his own extraordinary handling of a stellar cast, he brings Emmanuel Lubezki’s incredible cinematography front and center, bringing his amazing work in last year’s Gravity on to a completely new but equally compelling dimension. The film is brilliantly edited and has no real cuts - going from start to finish in what seems like one long endless act. This coupled with an impossibly nerve wracking percussion score by Antonio Sanchez. Whiplash and now Birdman - what a great year for Jazz percussion this has been.
Birdman, along with The Grand Budapest Hotel, brings the kind of fun to films that movies these days largely miss somehow. 2014 was a good year of movies for these two alone. But there is also Whiplash. Enough for us to fall in love with movies all over again.