Birdman (2014)

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? You were a little close the first time but not quite on the money because it's "Birdman". When I saw Dan Gilroy's film, "Nightcrawler" I thought that it was going to be my favourite film of 2014 without any competition, but I think that "Birdman" might just take its place at my top spot and even if it doesn't it comes really really close. It's hard to say because they're both really good movies, but "Birdman" is one of the most unique cinematic experiences I've had in a good while. It's really stylistic and it's a flawlessly artistic piece of filmmaking. "Birdman" follows the story of Riggan Thomson, an actor who gained his claim to fame when he played the popular superhero, Birdman, but ever since he left the goofy Birdman costume behind him his careers plummeted downhill. To regain his former glory and to try and do something more artistic than a superhero movie, he decides to write, direct and star in a Broadway stage adaptation of the Raymond Carver book, "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love". The production of Riggan's play is hindered by many things and throughout the film his mind wrestles with itself wondering if he's doing this play for the love of the art, or to achieve the same money and fame that he got playing Birdman. This film was directed by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, whose films I'm not particularly familiar with but "Birdman" has gotten me off to a very good start. From what I know his previous films have a much more serious tone than "Birdman" as it's his first comedy. "Birdman" is a black comedy though which means it has a much more harsh and pessimistic sense of humour, which is a style of comedy I find very very funny. It's not all laughs though. Although the characters in this film say some pretty outlandish things to say the least, they felt realistically flawed and experienced complex emotions throughout the film. The balance of the comedic and emotive tones in this film was done really well, and I enjoyed how this film dealt with its themes of self-worth and the human need to feel appreciated. This film and "Nightcrawler" are two of the films that have had genuinely unexpected things happen in them which is great, because it's an old belief held amongst filmmakers that you should keep the audience guessing to keep them watching, and it's a belief that I most certainly agree with. Inarritu's unusual technical choices for this film payed off very well. His choice to make the film entirely with long takes helps to make the film very immersive. I also found that it was a good way of helping the audience to get closer to the characters as you literally follow them every step of the way. There are several scenes in the film in which one of the actors is passionately delivering a monologue and they're filmed in an extreme close up, which really helps to bring much more of an intensity to the scene. Inarritu's other unique technical choice was to comprise the film's musical score entirely of drums, which very effectively captured the chaotic and hectic nature of the film's story. It particularly went well with the film's main character Riggan Thomson as he's continuously met with different challenges throughout the film and the drums' fast pace help to give the impression that he's losing his mind and slipping into madness. With awards season coming up I wouldn't be a bit surprised to see this film win both Best Cinematography and Best Orignal Score. Speaking of awards worthy craftsmanship this film features what is probably the best ensemble cast I've seen all year. Michael Keaton is terrific in the lead role as Riggan Thomson. He captures the character's selfishness and desperation for fame brilliantly. Riggan is a character that most of the time puts himself before others. He knows that he needs to give more love and attention to his girlfriend and his estranged daughter and just thin of others more in general, but his self-concerned hunger for fame always manages to get the better of him. All of the performances were great but apart from Keaton's performance in the main role the other two performances that stuck out to me as being really good were Emma Stone's intense portrayal of Sam, Riggan's troubled and sarcastic daughter and Edward Norton as Mike Shiner a cocky and slightly pretentious Thespian actor. I really enjoyed this film's parodying of the increasingly popular superhero genre especially for my growing distaste for superhero movies. There are a lot of superhero movies that I like, but it's starting to get to a point that around the summer time the only thing in cinemas is superhero movies. I've gotten to the point that I've had quite enough of seeing movies like "Man of Steel" and "The Amazing Spider-Man 2" that have little or no artistry or creativity in them, and always end in a 45 minute long headache inducing action sequence. I'm by no means saying that superhero movies need to be extremely deep in their subject matter, but I think they should be made to tell a story and not to be a feature length advertisement for the next film in the franchise. This film was a winner to me overall, but if I were to identify a few problems I had with it they would be that some of the jokes fell flat for me, particularly some of the more vulgar jokes which I thought seemed as if the writers were trying a bit too hard to force a laugh out of the audience, than to just let it happen. I also wasn't very fond of the several scenes in the film in which Riggan Thomson inherits the same powers as Birdman, as they felt out of place to me and didn't seem to do much to advance the film's story. I kind of think that the film might have benefited from the loss of the more surreal sequences but they didn't affect my enjoyment of the film very immensley overall. To conclude "Birdman" is well worth the price of a night out at the cinema. It's great quality filmmaking and it will satisfy you if you want to see something funny or if you want to see something a bit more dramatic. It's a very well made movie that clearly has been made with passion and I think that for that it deserves recognition, especially in a time when cinemas are overcrowded with feature length advertisements treated as a product as opposed to a film. I'd give "Birdman" a high-praising star rating of 5 out of 5 stars and would strongly recommend it to passionate lovers of cinema and the art of filmmaking and pretty much anyone who just simply wants to see a good movie.