Film Review: Birdman

Dir: Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

With: Michael Keaton, Edward Norton, Emma Stone

Runtime: 119 minutes

SINCE there are few sights lovelier to the eyes of actors and the arts media than their own navels, one might have anticipated Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's play-within-a-film comedy drama to arrive laden with acclaim. And so it has proven.

From Golden Globe nominations to Venice Film Festival awards via garlands from every critics' association from Dallas to DC, Birdman arrives hotter than the meteor crashing to earth which features in its opening scene. Inarritu's picture is a reverse meteor, shooting from Earth to space in a blaze of critical glory. The suspicious among you have every right to be wary.

Hold on a moment, though. This is certainly a niche movie, a bird that will appeal to the palates of the few rather than the many, but it is funny, ferociously savvy, and gloriously acted, boasting a central performance from Michael Keaton that shouts Oscar-worthy.

Keaton plays Riggan Thomson, an actor who grew Malibu rich from playing a superhero character called Birdman in a series of silly movies. The movie business loved Riggan for a while, but after a time he did not love it back. Filled with self-loathing and fearing himself to have been nothing but a fraud, he is seeking redemption by staging a Raymond Carver play on Broadway. Starring himself, naturally.

Rehearsals are not going well. Ditto ticket sales. Then, in a stroke of luck, manufactured or otherwise, one of the leads is injured and has to be replaced. Striding to the rescue is Mike Shiner (Edward Norton), a big name actor, a Method man, a face who can put posteriors on seats. With Mike's talent, plus that of Riggan's leading ladies (Naomi Watts and Andrea Riseborough), and his recently out of rehab daughter (the outstanding Emma Stone) as his assistant, the old timer should be set for success. And yet, and yet. With opening night only days away, the pressure begins to crush Riggan. Hitherto he has gloried in, as the film's subtitle has it, the unexpected virtue of ignorance. Now, perhaps, he is about to learn the truth about himself.

The screenplay, written by Inarritu (Babel, 21 Grams, Amores Perros), and three others is informed by lifetimes of watching actors in all their glorious, and not so glorious, moments. It is played by all concerned in the same split spirit of love and mild loathing. Here be vanity, bitchiness, attention-seeking, but here, also, is sheer, spell-weaving talent, the kind of skill that makes characters flesh and blood and lines on a page sing.

Alternately aiding and undermining Riggan is the voice of Birdman, conveyed in a Batmanesque growl. Keaton, of course, once played Batman. Like everything else in this movie, the jokes work in layers. Meanwhile, waiting to bury Riggan and his play is Lindsay Duncan's critic, Tabitha, from the New York Times. Expressing her hatred of everything Riggan represents, a movie star using the theatre to boost his ego, she readies her notebook for the kill.

Duncan, in common with the rest of the cast, is given some mouthwatering lines. The quality of the dialogue alone is reason enough to want to see the film a second time, the better to savour the craftsmanship on show. The direction and cinematography, likewise, are masterclasses in matching mood and style to material, with particular feats to savour the long, tracking shots as the characters pad their way through the theatre like caged, exotic beasts, and the swoops into fantasy.

The only reservation about Birdman is that its greatest strength, its skilfully mixed feelings towards the business, is also a weakness. For all the heated passions on show there is a chilliness about the film which means one can admire it wholeheartedly while never quite warming heart and soul to it.

One can, though, fall wholly in love with Keaton's performance. A genuinely gifted actor whose own career has resembled a game of Hollywood snakes and ladders, he is on brilliant form here. If anything resembles that reverse meteorite it is Keaton as he struts and frets his hour upon the stage, signifying everything.