Good, not Great

Rating: 8/10 (19 January 2015)

Oscar Season and Birdman by Alejandro González Iñárritu is the first 2015 "Oscar-buzz" film I have seen. Iñárritu chronicles Riggan Thomson (Michael Keaton) attempting to gain credibility as an actor by writing, directing and acting in his own Broadway play. Thomson is haunted by his past action hero persona, dogged by his fans, loathed by theatre critics and undermined by his celebrated co-star Mike Shiner (Edward Norton).
The movie relishes in turning the mirror on its audience, its cast, its crew and its critics. While this can be fun at times, it easily swings right round and is heavy handed. The symbolism that Iñárritu choose becomes so obvious he might as well have been in the theatre asking me: "Have you got it yet?" This over-emphasis makes me wonder how much influence Iñárritu had over the final cut as it seems that it was purposefully cut and marketed as "Oscar bait".
Cinematography in this film is magnificent, everything is cut to look like one constant hand-held shot. Iñárritu employs simple but clever cutting techniques, such as letting a door close fully to allow an actor to walk back through it to start another scene. This is the real fun of the film, it creates a great sense of the theatre and continuity and this is something you will see many others trying to imitate.
I loved the acting in this film; Michael Keaton just blew me away with his range in the film, it would be almost shameful for him not to win an Oscar. The supporting cast was equally impressive, with Norton playing probably the richest character I have seen him play in awhile. The subtly of Norton's performance comes from his character never really breaking his stage persona, and once again this adds so much depth to the film. Watts and Stone, however, were lumped with clichéd characters and while their performances were impressive, the limited female presence in the film left me irked.
Script-wise the film is a bit shallow. It's a simple plot whose end is transparent from the beginning, it works, but some careful attention could have made it much tighter. The dialogue can be hollow; sometimes this is intentional and other times its distracting. In my opinion possibly chopping off 10-15 minutes would have allowed a smoother flow to the film.
Overall, mostly funny, condescending all too often, and I have a feeling that I am either going to love or hate by this film by the end of the year.