Poster for Birdman, starring Michael Keaton, directed by Alejandro Gonzales Inarritu. Photo/Vulture
[dropcap]B[/dropcap]irdman (or the Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance), the cerebral new indie from Mexican auteur Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu starring Michael Keaton, is striking a chord with cinephiles and fans of Keaton’s Batman role alike — generating Oscar buzz for both its director and lead actor.
Keaton is Riggan Thomson, a washed-up action star trying to live down his 90’s success in a superhero franchise (sounds familiar) by doing a serious play on Broadway. The show is plagued from the start by bad reviews and a complete lack of control.
To make matters worse, Riggan has to keep everybody around him happy, including his drug-addled daughter played by Emma Stone, while the Birdman persona still haunts him as a voice in his head/phantom pecking at his ego. (Oh, and Thomson has actual superpowers — or thinks he does.)
The film is a black-comic send-up of comic-book adaptations and Summer blockbusters perfectly suited to Inarritu’s postmodern, art-house aesthetic. In the opening credits, letters flicker in and out like neon signs to spell out the names of the cast, something delightfully borrowed from Jean-Luc Godard’s Pierrot le fou.
Structurally, Alejandro goes avant garde, editing shots together to make the film look like one long, continuous, if elliptical, take. By following Riggan and others individually for lengthy periods, he channels the fragmented nature of his classics Babel and Amores Perros, along with that of the lead character’s personality.
Inarritu has a shot at having as favorable an Oscar season as his contemporary Alfonso Cuaron had last year, but 2014 may in the end belong to Michael Keaton, who steps back into the role of average-guy-as-Broadway-artisan he played so well in Game 6 — while drawing on his real-life background — without being too cliche or straining credibility.
Michael Keaton’s alter ego won’t leave him alone after all these years in Birdman. Photo/Wired
Birdman is inventive, offbeat, and certainly Oscar-worthy. Still playing in select theaters, it also stars Naomi Watts, Edward Norton, and Zach Galifianakis.
