Birdman
Running time: 119 minutes. Rated R (profanity, sexuality, violence). At the Lincoln Square and the Angelika.
Michael Keaton goes from “the answer to a Trivial Pursuit question” — as his character puts it — to serious Best Actor Oscar contender in “Birdman,” a manic black satire of Broadway in which he triumphs over not only his scene-stealing co-star Edward Norton but a flashy directorial tour de force.
This movie is painstakingly staged and edited by director and co-writer Alejandro Iñárittu (“Babel”) and his team to resemble a single unbroken scene meant to simulate the tortured psyche of Riggan Thomson, a washed-up actor who is (like former-movie-Batman Keaton) haunted by his long-ago film role as a superhero named Birdman.
Thomson has decided to restart his moribund career by starring in his own self-financed adaptation of a short story by Raymond Carver — and he’s raised the stakes on the risky undertaking by also making his directing debut on Broadway.
The film hilariously covers the show from previews through opening night, a period during which pretty much everything that can go wrong does go wrong.
It doesn’t at all help that at the last minute Riggan impulsively replaces his second male lead with Mike (a self-satirizing Edward Norton), a flamboyant uber-Method actor whose relationship with Riggan’s co-star (Naomi Watts) is badly fraying.
Even as Mike is usurping Riggan’s directorial prerogatives and his press coverage, our hero’s own girlfriend (and second female lead, played by Andrea Riseborough) is announcing she’s pregnant.
Adding considerably to the offstage drama is Riggan’s estranged daughter (Emma Stone), whom he’s hired as his personal assistant straight off a stint in rehab.
Riggan’s paranoia is further raised by an encounter with a snobbish New York Times drama critic (Lindsay Duncan) who makes no secret of what she thinks of movie stars slumming on Broadway — and taunts from Riggan’s winged alter ego that he’d be better off accepting an offer for a fourth Birdman movie than risk embarrassment on the stage.
Even with the support of his long-suffering manager (an agreeably cast-against-type Zach Galifianakis) and ex-wife (Amy Ryan), it’s small wonder that former substance abuser Riggan falls off the wagon and lands on social media for his antics in Times Square.
Most of the action takes place in Broadway’s historic St. James Theatre, where Oscar-winning director of photography Emmanuel Lubezki (“Gravity”) relentlessly whips his camera around the characters both onstage and through the corridors leading into their dressing rooms, even venturing onto the roof for one scene where Mike tries to put the make on Riggan’s daughter.
It takes a towering central performance by Keaton — who doffs his hairpiece and goes deep as a narcissistic actor desperately in search of himself — to keep “Birdman” from turning into an elaborate stunt like Alfred Hitchcock’s single-take “Rope.”
Instead, it’s perhaps the most incisive and funniest Hollywood take on Broadway since Mel Brook’s original “The Producers.”
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