Let me get my criticism of Birdman out of the way right off the bat.
There's a scene early where Riggan Thompson (Michael Keaton), a faded action movie star trying to reinvent himself as a serious stage actor, is exchanging dialogue with the vastly more experienced theater actor Mike Shiner (Edward Norton). Shiner is brought in to work on the Broadway production at the last moment after a piece of lighting falls on one of the players during rehearsals (symbolic of the problems plaguing the production thus far). Shiner knows the script because he had helped coach his girlfriend (Naomi Watts) who is in the play and suggested him for the role. When Riggan feeds him a line, Shiner stops him, pointing out that he had just said the same thing in about five different ways. Why not cut out the repetition? Make is punchy, make it blunt, say it once.
Oh, if only director Alejandro Gonzalez Iñarritu and his veritable army of co-writers had followed their own advice. We are repeatedly hit over the head by on the nose dialogue about the pressure Riggan Thompson is under that it assumes the audience isn't smart enough to figure that out by what's going on on the screen. And what's going on on the screen is spectacular, and outweighs any reservations I might have about the script itself, which alternates between slyly wicked and obvious.
The movie begins with the play within a movie ready to go into previews and the production already in shambles as well as in debt. The a fore mentioned Riggan Thompson is still trying to run away from the shadow of the hugely popular superhero franchise he quit back in the early '90's. But now that he's hitting sixty he finds himself irrelevant in a new world of social media and viral videos. In an attempt to do something meaningful he adapts a short story by Raymond Carver, writing, directing, producing and staring in the project. Along with the felled, now litigious co-star, he's dealing with a hostile daughter just out of rehab (Emma Stone), an insecure leading lady (Watts), a girlfriend who may be pregnant, and also has eyes for the leading lady (Andrea Riseborough), as well as the Norton character who is volatile, abrasive and self serving. As if his friends weren't enemy enough, there's a hell on wheels New York Times theater critic determined to close the play on opening night with her pen (Lindsay Duncan). The only one keeping him sane (barely) is his lawyer played by Zach Galifianakis.
As you can tell, there are a lot of characters to keep track of, but each suffers from an underlying crisis of meaning in life and the emotional insecurity it brings with it. At the same time the movie doesn't accept that their angst is necessarily well earned. When Norton confronts the Stone character on why she's so hostile toward her father she talks about how he was always away during her childhood and later tried to make up for it by making her feel special. Norton responds with a shrug, as if to say, "And? That's it?" As for Norton, he's a cocky loose cannon and readily admits that he really doesn't care if people like him or not, yet he only feels completely self assured on stage. In fact when it comes to his love life the stage is the only place he's ready to perform, much to the horror / frustration of his girlfriend-co-star (you'll just have to see the movie to know what I mean).
As for Michael Keaton's Riggan, there are obvious parallels to his real life association to the Batman franchise, though in 1989 Keaton was a serious actor who took heat for donning the cape and mask from fan boys who didn't think he has action star enough. Here his character tries to prove his artistic theater cred amid reporters who would rather talk about rumors of unorthodox anti aging injections and a possible reprise of his Birdman role. He's a man who is trying to pursue an artistic vision in a world that has stopped caring about art, thus forcing the question if the project really matters at all. The one person in the movie who does care about such things is the Times critic who can't get past the fact that Riggan is a "movie star" who only got to book the theater because of his celebrity, thus robbing a more worthy playwright an opportunity to shine.
Amidst the egos, pratfalls, self destruction, and bizzare twists of fate Riggan barely keeps it together. He hears the voice of Birdman and experiences episodes of magical realism that are obviously going on in his head. Or are they? He reaches rock bottom the night of the last preview when he realizes that the critic has already decided what she thinks, leaving us to wonder if he can pull this mess of a play together in time for opening night. The ending is telegraphed, which was frustrating at first, but they give it enough of a humorously ambiguous twist to keep it from being completely predictable, and staying true to the film's dark yet comic tone.
Like the project that our antihero is pursuing, Birdman is ambitious. It is critiquing our vacuous, celebrity gossip driven, entertainment obsessed times, while also exploring the nature of intimate relationships and the meaning of life. Along with very introspective scenes of dialogue, both internal and external, there is sweeping camera work, and even a touch of CGI action fantasy thrown in for good measure. Iñarritu utilizes long takes and impressive tracking shots that allow scened to develop and meld into each other. While my criticism of the script itself still holds, and it could have been about 15 or twenty minutes shorter, Birdman offered me something alien to too many of my recent movie going experiences: a sense that I was being challenged.
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