Birdman (2014)

[My first movie of 2015! And on time, too. It opened here last weekend.]

My interest in the movie stemmed from its premise (a former-superhero actor trying to distance himself from what made him famous and revive his career with a show on Broadway) and its lead actor (Michael Keaton).

A case of art imitating life, perhaps?

Granted, Keaton hasn’t been on Broadway nor has his career in later years been a comedy of errors, but after the Batman movies, I heard some typecasting was to be had, and like the elusive Billy Crystal, he hasn’t been in much in past years.

[Which is why I enjoyed seeing him in The Other Guys. “We're losing him!... HE’S DYING!!”]

Riggan Thomson (Keaton’s character), once famous for Birdman (a superhero in a series of films), has now faded into obscurity and constantly hears his alter-ego (Birdman) talk to him about returning to his action movie roots. He adapts and stars in a Broadway play to gain relevance, but in getting said play to make it through previews and opening night without a hitch, he has mend his relationship with his former addict of a daughter (Emma Stone), and deal with method supporting actor Mike Shiner (played brilliantly by Edward Norton).

Birdman is more dark comedy, with the humour being more comic than your standard kind of funny, and made for some great laughs in the film. It also tries to incorporate some fantastical elements (telekinesis, especially), and though it looks great, it’s almost an excuse to have a special effects department (reminding me of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, a movie that could’ve been just as effective without showing us how overactive Walter’s imagination really is). The much-hyped long takes were woven seamlessly as one, and though very, very cool from a technical point of view, I found it distracted me because I kept trying to spot where one take ended and the next began.

With Keaton’s casting, you can’t help but see the parallels between his and Riggan’s career (downward spiral excepted). The movie even quotes that the last time Riggan played Birdman was in 1992, which was the last time Keaton donned the Batsuit! The long takes worked in his favour, I feel, because even though he’s not physically on-camera (in certain scenes his reflection is onscreen), your attention is still on him because you just can’t take your eyes off his almost-trainwreck of a character.

There is almost a tragic quality to Keaton’s performance, and I’m glad that (his) life doesn’t mirror art at all. A lot of people are saying that this is Keaton’s role of a lifetime, and given the meta-ness of it all, I agree with them. Keaton got a Best Actor Oscar nomination for his portrayal, and I hope he wins, come Oscar night.

[Maybe next time, BC.]

Norton almost steals the show as Mike Shiner, a renowned but asshole-ish theatre actor that you get a kick out of watching and eventually sympathise with because Norton manages to make him both likeable and vulnerable. Quite a number of the film’s comic moments come from Norton, and he’s spot on as Mike, which makes me wonder whether Norton was chosen given his own reputation for being difficult when it comes to artistic integrity.

[On that note, my crush on Ed Norton has been renewed.]

There is a sense of impending tragedy in the last part of the film. The first two instances were interspersed with random humour that succeeded in creating some levity, but turned out to be false alarms and left me still on the edge of my seat because I’m rooting for Riggan to pull himself together and make it through the film. The movie ends with the last instance, which is on a positive note, although it’s highly Inception-vague.

This is a movie that requires your full attention, and I blame the single-camera system. Having at least two people on the same screen at the same time all the time means that you may not be able to appreciate fully the performances of the actors on screen because you’d only be looking at one (usually the one talking) and not the other.

Do watch (a few times).