Birdman or the totally unexpected virtue of failed superheroes

Rating: 9/10 (17 February 2018)

Riggan Thomson is an actor whose glory years are now in the past; in an attempt to regain the acclaim and leave behind the shadow of Birdman (the superhero that launched him to fame 20 years ago), he ventures to make a Broadway adaptation of Raymond Carver's What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, acted, directed and produced by himself. Just before the preview performances one of the players is injured, forcing the production to find a replacement, which comes in the skin of Mike Shiner, a brilliant but highly conflictive actor, due to his excessive commitment to the acting method. However, Mike is just one of the many issues Riggan must deal with before the opening night: his daughter Sam, fresh out of rehab and who's working as his assistant; Laura, her scene partner with whom is having an affair; a potential claim by the injured player; the pressure that brings the Times critic Tabitha Dickinson, who has the necessary influence to ensure the success or failure of the play, and finally is the voice in his head which manifests as Birdman and that makes him fantasize (or go delirious?) about his time of splendor.
In his fifth feature film, director Alejandro González Iñárritu takes a radical turn to his narrative style and bets for the black comedy and satire. This change turns out to be perfect, as he moves away from the stories infested of tragedy and suffering closer to what is known as "misery porn", and while they worked in the past for him, in his previous work Biutiful already showed that this formula was wearing out quickly. But he does not abandons them totally, since in Birdman explores the emotional misery of a man looking for a new opportunity to prove he is not finished and so redeem his failures as a father, husband and even as actor and how this search can cost him his sanity, all this with a very corrosive humor. Not coincidentally, Iñárritu has chosen the work of Raymond Carver, since it works as an irony about what love means for each of the characters: for Sam, the lack of it throughout his life; for Mike the love that borders on insane vanity and blinds him to the perception of others towards him and Riggan himself, looking for love in the form of success and lost admiration. At the same time Iñárritu with his co-writers throw a subtle but accurate critique of current Hollywood production system, concerned about over-exploiting movie sub-genres like the superheroes one and make endless franchises for the sole purpose of generating profits and how the same industry relegates and denies opportunities for older actors who are forced in many cases to create their own opportunities in order to stay relevant. On the other hand, it has no mercy with critics and how their work can turn into pure snobbery and some of them forget the sense of objective criticism and move it to the personal level.
Iñarritu has managed to polish his skills as a director and this time assumes a big risk by taking them to the limit, knowing that the result could have been disastrous. However, what he achieves is a hypnotic and captivating work. This with the help of a great technical team led by Oscar winner Emmanuel Lubezki, who continues to surpass himself, editors Stephen Mirrione and Douglas Crise, who executed perfectly the idea that the viewer is watching a long tracking shot and drummer Antonio Sanchez, who created based on jazz rhythms an energetic and disturbing score at the same time.
However, Iñarritu's best ability is the one that shines the most in this movie, and that's the capacity to create empathy with his actors so they can give the best of themselves and achieve unforgettable performances. This skill has been a constant since his film debut Amores perros and in Birdman takes advantage of a virtuoso cast with Naomi Watts, Andrea Riseborough and Amy Ryan in small but juicy roles, Emma Stone as Sam, Edward Norton who find in Mike his best performance in years. But certainly Michael Keaton is the soul, heart and brain of Birdman, at this point is difficult to conceive the film without his extraordinary performance as Riggan with all its nuances, from his emotional vulnerability caused by the fear of failure to his anger caused by his frustration.
This is how Birdman stands as one of the best films of 2014 and confirms Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu as one of the most daring and original voices in current cinema.