Thoughts about Birdman

Rated R

119 minutes

Directed by Alejandro G. Inarritu

Note: I so desperately want to write a long review on this movie, but it seems like everything that was needing to be said about this movie was said. As such, I have a mix between a brief thoughts and a movie review on this one, which is kind of funny, given that it's a favorite of mine. This isn't to diss the review I have written, but merely a means to say a film can be great, but was dissected enough that you won't have enough to say. 

Can we just give Michael Keaton the Oscar, please?  But seriously, he is awesome in this. This isn't to discount the rest of the cast, however. All the main actors give great performances, even if some of the characters are pretty 'eh.' This helps build to an excellent film, one with actors working at the top of their games, and one that is technically very impressive. The film is edited together seamlessly, and the one shot technique really fits this film. As we go through the film, we slowly piece together that what we're seeing is through a biased narrator. We are merely spectators to Riggan Thompson's (Michael Keaton's) POV, and it really works as it goes along. 

The big complaint I have about this film is Naomi Watts's character. I loved Naomi in the film, but her character was a bit one-dimensional. It seemed like every other sentence out of her mouth was "Oh, this is my first Broadway show! I can't screw this up, as it's my big break!" If it had happened once or twice, I would've been able to forgive it, but when it's jammed down your throat like that, it really detracts from what the movie is trying to accomplish. It takes you out of the film, as nothing else in the movie is as heavy handed as that. 

The one thing that really stuck out for me was when Riggan is standing on a roof, and there's a slow pan around him. In that pan, we see ads of Man of Steel and Masterchef (both guilty pleasures of mine). Now, it's entirely possible that the ads were just there because no roof in NYC could have no ads behind it, but I prefer to think that Inarritu purposely chose that roof to make a point.  By this I mean that by including tose types of ads, I like to think that Inarritu is commenting on the human nature to focus on things that they know. By including these ads, Inarritu is putting us through a test, to see whether or not we can stay focused on the film that was craftily made, or focus on the mainstream things, the entities that are known, and just start thinking about those things instead. I found this to be a clever touch, while not taking me out of the film. It's one of these devices that makes Birdman one of the best of the year. See it immediately.

4.5/5

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