What happens when you believe so steadfastly in your own legend that it becomes your reality?
Such is the question posed for Michael Keaton Riggan Thomson, as he ponders the aftereffects of a meteoric rise portraying Batman Birdman, just how, after a plummeted career and a world of burned bridges between himself and his family, he can mount his comeback. That is, if he can get his Broadway play off the ground, keep his ego in check, and get his affairs in order, seemingly all at once.
If there’s ever been a more meta casting and storyline built around a single actor and premise, it’s this quirky film, a black comedy boiling over with surrealist imagery, performed by an all-star cast the likes of Zach Galafanakis, Naomi Watts, Emma Stone, and Edward Norton.
Never mind the fact that Birdman (of Hanna-Barbera fame) as a character has himself descended into washed-up superhero parody. Never mind that Keaton himself could be viewed through the same lens, his unforgettable tenure as the star of the original unforgettable superhero in Tim Burton’s Batman has been the standard by which every iteration since has been judged. It isn’t like since then, he’s been somewhat marginalized in the present day until he can reprise a Beetlejuice level of box office fame…right?
No, not at all (cough, but THIS film, by a one Alejandro González Iñárritu, (21 Grams, Babel) seems to want to address the questions you didn’t know were burning in the back of your skull with his film Birdman (or: The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance). While reading the title and seeing the film’s poster, I was almost convinced this was going to be a superhero film, but what this trailer promises seems so much better, I don’t even know where to begin with drawing the lines between Thomson’s view of his world and the reality he actually inhabits. Check the trailer, and see if you aren’t similarly captivated by the madness within.
(More madness? Can be found at BirdmanTheMovie.com)
