What follows is a rambunctious, spastic, and dreamy entertainment business parody, Noises Off! by way of Jean-Paul Sartre. An often meditative dramatist, Iñárritu plays things intentionally crass. When we first meet Riggan, his life-or-death existential headaches are already externalized itself as flashy superpowers. As the voice of Birdman (a gruff, Christian Bale growl) murmurs in his ear, luring him back to easy franchise work, Riggan levitates and moves objects with his mind. Tangible pressures spring him back into action, zipping around New York's St. James theater like an Aaron Sorkin Olympian. Birdman nails the Murphy's Law effects of a rusty theater production.
Time is equally jazzed and improvised thanks to Iñárritu’s “one-shot” technique. His camera glides from characters bickering in a dressing room, down a Shining-esque hallway, and straight on to stage, where the same pair might be seen performing that night's preview. Special effects and perfect timing mask blend segments into one continuous motion, but it's Emmanuel Lubezki's cinematography, wide-angled and crisp, that seduces the eyes into a full-on mirage.
Birdman is absorbing to the point where theme is like a hot fudge coating. It's almost too rich. Potent ideas of validation and ego lose meaning as the film's four credited writers translate heightened dialogue into straight up beat poetry. The theater contains the multitudes of life and history, occasionally causing Riggan to relapse into visions straight out of Tree of Life.
Birdman excels when raising questions — on social media's chokehold over reality, on the iPhone as our lens into the world, on originality in a zeitgeist that demands its A-listers dress up in capes and masks — and it's pure joy when it acknowledges that some questions are unanswerable. Iñárritu can be didactic. A scene where Riggan yells at his twenty-something daughter (Emma Stone) about today's kids wanting “to go viral” will make millennials roll their eyes. When a New York Times theater critic threatens to destroy “What We Talk About” in her review, Riggan lambasts her for never daring to create art of her own. (And while it may sting this critic's soul, in Birdman's battle of ambition and fulfillment, the gripe is that there's room for layers in a character that Iñárritu chooses to caricature.)Birdman still earns the tour-de-force title thanks to a bevy of all-in comedic performances. Norton finds nuance in the bullheaded thespian, charming, destructively dedicated, and completely incapable of existing outside the four walls of a theater. Slapstick and tenderness don't often pair. Norton doubles down on both and roars. A scene where Riggan catches Shiner drinking real gin during a show reaches Stooge levels of transcendent zaniness.
Watts subverts her male costars with earnestness, an actress who might be failing because she can't inflate her head like everyone else in “the biz.” There is honesty on stage and honesty in life. Lesley won't forsake the latter, morality Watts plays with complete honesty. Galifianakis, Riseborough, and Stone all keep up with the circus, adding their peculiar timbres to a work that's a tad too crazed for its own good.
