Michael Keaton makes a thrilling comeback in Alejandro González Iñárritu’s movie about acting, fame, and the hilarious messiness of life. It’s one of the year’s best.
Michael Keaton hovers about West 44th Street in Birdman.
Fox Searchlight
The first time we see Riggan (Michael Keaton), the conflicted soul at the center of Birdman, he's meditating. In his undies. His bared torso is that of a perfectly normal middle-aged man, which is to say a little soft and comical in those tighty-whiteys and not the sort that's typically brandished in a Hollywood movie.
It's not a big deal to most people, but meaningful to Riggan ("I look like a turkey with leukemia!" he howls when looking at himself in the mirror), a fading star who once acted in a superhero franchise about a masked, avian-themed vigilante named "Birdman." No longer a desired blockbuster lead, and anxious to prove himself a serious talent, Riggan is directing and starring in a Broadway play that he wrote himself, adapted from Raymond Carver's What We Talk About When We Talk About Love.
Riggan is also levitating in mid air in that scene, a bit of yogic flight that's the first of many signs of superpowers he displays over the course of Birdman, abilities that the movie realizes in gorgeous fullness while giving us understated but solid reasons to believe they're all in his head. It's a splashy way to show us Riggan's growing delusional side as well as his ego — what A-lister, former or otherwise, believes himself bound by something as mundane as gravity?
Fox Searchlight
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