Heavy man !

Rating: 6/10 (25 February 2015)

Largely over rated movie, not lacking qualities, probably exceeded though. It's often funny, okay, poignant at times, absurd or even fantastic (poetic?) sometimes, but it's so heavy for a topic that deserves more lightness. This is the story of a challenge, a rebirth, a creative process for a has-been actor attempting to be recognized at last and for that matter the choice of Michael Keaton (whose Beetlejuice remains legendary to me) and the resonance with his own career is perfect. It's also a film about show business, where the strings, tricks, clichés and outbids are visible ad nauseam. As for staging theater, backdrop of the intrigue, the form of Birdman has a lot to do with its point. Except that it is abstruse. It is only a pretext for a series of burlesque scandals from each of the protagonists. Let me be clear, this is still a movie to watch: it's well done, the actors are excellent, there is rhythm and imagination in the waltz (perpetual sequence-shot) depicting these pathetic people, but everything is running round, it's heavy, insistent and in the end we do not care at all about their states of souls. In comparison, Birdman is closer to American Huslte or Synecdoche NY than Altman's or Cassavetes' movies, which I read Iñárritu's feature was compared to.