Birdman Review

     What happens to a star when they have nothing left, what happens when their career is in shambles and their fame is long gone? Usually they have two options, they either accept their fate with dignity and let the past stay in the past, or they do whatever is necessary to revitalize their dead career. When most former stars go for that second option though, it rarely works out. I feel it stems from a need to be special, that they have to be above the common folk. They crave for admiration and popularity, and will sell their souls for it. It's always been like this though, once someone has served their purpose they are nothing more than a faded memory and we just move on to the next young star. We often don't see these stars as people; we see them as a commodity to be used at our leisure. We rarely care what happens to them once we're finished, and through this attitude once great people are thoroughly destroyed. And its reasons like that why they will stake it all for one last chance of fame. 

     Riggin Thomas is a washed up, has-been of an actor most famously known for portraying a superhero named Birdman years back. After saying no to a fourth movie, his reputation started to slip through his fingers. Struggling with alcoholism and eventually getting divorced, Riggin didn't having a whole lot going for him. At the tail end of his career he decides to do a Broadway adaptation of Raymond Carver's short story "What We Talk About When we Talk About Love." Writing, directing, and starring, Riggin manages to put it together. Unfortunately, just a night before the first preview one of his co-stars is severely injured and has to be replaced. An acclaimed actor named Mike Shiner steps in to fill the roll, but is incredibly difficult to work with and tries to take over; and all this is happening when Riggin is slowly losing his mind. Haunted by the voice of Birdman, he attempts to balance the play as well as the relationship with his estranged daughter while slowly descending into madness and losing his grip on reality. Also, Riggin might have telekinetic powers.

     "Birdman" has a run time of 119 minutes, and for those 119 minutes I never even looked at my phone to see what time it was because I was so enthralled with what was happening on the screen. If you were to make the argument that film can be art, this would be a prime example. Director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu did an amazing job with this movie, having absolute control of everything going on and filling it with several complex themes. It also does great job as a social criticism. It's very critical of Hollywood and the way that stars are treated; it also shines a light on the way critics and journalists work, who are more concerned about having a good quote than giving thorough critiques and really exploring their subject matter. But the movie doesn't come off to pretentious in that aspect, everything it says makes sense and refers to serious problems that should be addressed. One of the best features of this movie would have to be the acting, every member of the cast does a great job; Edward Norton, Emma Stone, Naomi Watts, and Zach Galifianakis Give some of the best performances of their careers. Undoubtedly though, it’s Michael Keaton as the lead who steals the show. He's incredible and has never been better, and I'm willing to bet money that he wins an Oscar. It does help that the writing is so good with such great dialog. By the end you are really rooting for these characters and only want to see them succeed. An interesting aspect of this movie would that it is almost satirical in a few ways, some of the characters act as parallels to the real actors' careers. Michael Keaton played Batman in the 1980s at the height of his career, and has never really been able to recapture that former glory. What's funny is that like the play is for the lead character, this movie could seriously revitalize Keaton's career. Another actor parallel would be Edward Norton who, like is character, is notorious for being difficult to work with. I will say that Edward Norton's story line could have been handled better towards the end. For most of the movie he plays a major part and is the source of much of the conflict, but in the third act his involvement just kind of tappers off. I feel the director purposely sought out actors who could so closely relate to these characters, and if so it worked perfectly. Something that everyone has been talking about would be the film's cinematography, and I will say it may be some of the best cinematography I have ever seen. The entire movie is designed to look like one continues shot, and it manages to do it through meticulous planning and clever cuts. One of my favorite aspects of "Birdman" would be the soundtrack and more precisely how it uses the music. Most of the score is only percussion based with a jazz influence and feels very in the moment. It makes the movie even more dynamic, in a way we don't often see. One of the few problems I have with the movie though would be the end; it's not that the ending was bad or inappropriate or even unsatisfying, it's just that I felt it could have been handled better. The last ten minutes or so could have ended in several other ways that would have ended itself better to the story overall. "Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)" is arguably the best movie of an already stacked year. It is smart, original, and in some ways genre defining. Only open in a few theaters, this is one of the most see movies of the year. Meant for true film lovers, it's movies like this that show that the cinema is not a dying art form. 

Pros: Oscar worthy performance from Michael Keaton, great performances from the entire cast, fantastic directing from Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, Oscar worthy cinematography, great use of music, great writing and dialog, complex themes, very funny at times, several sincere and emotional moments, critical of Hollywood and critics in all the right ways, the very definition of film as art

Cons: I didn't love the ending, Edward Norton's story-line just tappers off.

5/5 Stars