Film Review: ‘Birdman’ flies high with stellar performances

I’ve spent much of my life as an editor, so let me get something off my chest. It’s hard to know which elements of the title of Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s new film are his work and which come from some graphic designer. The ads call it “BiRDMAN or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance).” The press kit ignores the parentheses and is inconsistent with the status of the “i” in “BiRDMAN.” Worst of all, if there has to be a subtitle, there’s no way the word “or” should be outside the parentheses, if the parentheses are appropriate at all (which they’re not.)
Thank you for your indulgence.

Having said all that, now a few words about the movie itself. Dodgy punctuation or not, Gonzalez Inarritu’s film may well be the best English-language release we’ll see this year. And, for context, my reaction to his previous movies — “Amores Perros,” “21 Grams,” “Babel,” and “Biutiful” — has ranged from “mildly technically interesting” to “pointlessly derivative” to “what a pretentious pile of perros droppings.”
Regardless of your position on those insanely overrated films, one aspect of “Birdman” (the title formation to be used hereafter) will surprise, even shock, you: Mr. Gonzalez Inarritu displays a sense of humor, a quality almost entirely absent from his earlier work. In fact, “Birdman” is often frankly hilarious.

Michael Keaton stars as Riggan Thomson, a movie star best known for his work as superhero “Birdman” in a series of action blockbusters. A few years back, he declined to continue, despite the wealth and fame the character brought him. Now, to establish his legitimacy as a capital-T Thespian, he has adapted a group of Raymond Carver stories — much as Robert Altman and Frank Barhydt did for real in the 1993 “Short Cuts” — but his adaptation is for the stage, in a production he is producing, directing, and starring in.
When one of his actors is hit by a piece of falling stage equipment — “The blood coming out of his ear is the first honest thing he’s done,” we are told — the part is taken over by the brilliant but arrogant Mike Shiner (Edward Norton), who is far less famous than Riggan but far more respected as a stage actor. Riggan is also trying to work out his guilt about not spending more time with his daughter, Sam (Emma Stone), who is now his personal assistant.

Stir in a bunch of sexual/romantic complications, financial worries, and a New York Times theater critic whose behavior is beyond unprofessional. And finally, top it all with the notion that Riggan lives half in some sort of “Twilight Zone” universe, and you have an end product considerably more interesting that the usual backstage melodrama.
Riggan is taunted by a voice no one else hears — seemingly the voice of Birdman. Birdman is obviously a royalty-free gloss on Batman, the part that elevated Keaton from comedic lead to superstar and which, like Riggan, he bowed out of after a few hits. (Actually, Birdman’s growling voice sounds more like Christian Bale’s subsequent Batman entries.)

And when Riggan communicates with Birdman — with no one else around, of course — he also demonstrates levitation and telekinesis, smashing up his room at one point without actually touching anything. Thanks to Birdman, he may even be able to fly.
Because we are almost always seeing things from Riggan’s perspective, we can never precisely know whether he’s psychically gifted or psychotically impaired.

Unlike Riggan, Keaton has proved the breadth of his acting talent many times over. But it’s been a long time since he’s taken on a role so demanding of finely calibrated nuance. Norton is fabulous as well, and all the other principals — including Stone, Naomi Watts, and an unrecognizably trim Zach Galifianakis — deliver in spades.
Two stylistic issues have to be addressed. First, the music track is brilliantly put together, alternating excerpts of Mahler, Beethoven, and other orchestral giants with a driving solo percussion track. (The drummer is seen at one point sitting right outside the theater.) Second, somehow Gonzalez Inarritu has shot most of the film in uninterrupted takes of five or 10 minutes, gliding the camera from dressing rooms to stage to roof to the streets outside and back in again, with a lot of the cast moving in and out of the action.

Sometimes this sort of technical bravura is just a show-off exercise, but here it repeatedly forces us into Riggan’s position, as he deals with one personal, professional, or spiritual crisis after another. Best of all, I didn’t even notice the camera movement until at least five minutes into the first shot, because what was in the shot was so engaging. That’s when you know they’re doing it right.
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ANDY KLEIN is the film critic for Marquee. He can also be heard on “FilmWeek” on KPCC-FM (89.3).