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Birdman: Or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)

A character in Birdman suggests to the titular figure that he 'confuses love for admiration' and this neatly sums up the film for me. Easy to admire, very hard to love. The admirable part mostly shows itself through the celebrated cinematography of Emmanuel Lubezki. His hand-held, 'one take' style, though hardly ground-breaking, is technically brilliant. Lubezki has tried his hand at this kind of technique (gimmick?) before with that great scene in Children of Men.

Take this away though, and I'm afraid the film appears as something of an actors wankfest. Some of the acting is pretty good and I'm thinking of Emma Stone and Ed Norton mainly here. The others seem to be pushing things a little too hard (Galifianakis is shite). It may be that acting as earnest theatre types, so in love with their profession, rubbed off a little because some of the ham was actually sniffable.

The biggest problem was that I didn't give a rat's arse about any of the characters in the film. I don't demand a character to love, like, desire, enjoy, etc in every film, but at least give me someone to care about. Even the one the audience is probably expected to sympathise or associate with comes across as a spoilt, rich kid with an attitude problem. The script tries very hard to single her out as our 'proxy' - Norton blows sunshine up her arse, she has a scene with her father that's designed to make her seem 'real' and she's the only person in the final frame of the movie. But still.......

Admittedly there are some nice lines of dialogue. Keaton grabs at his half naked body and anguishes that he looks "like a turkey with leukaemia". Looking for a new actor for the play, the producer explains that Fassbender is "doing the prequel to the X-Men prequel". Much of the dialogue is snappy and clever but that's not the issue. The film is simply let down by a story that doesn't really go anywhere and characters that are very hard to identify with.

For a great film that wrestles with the topic of 'art' versus 'popcorn' (or movies vs theatre), see the Coen Brothers' Barton Fink. Wipes the floor with Birdman. A couple of scenes also reminded me of another superior film, Spike Jonze's Adaptation.

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