Birdman

It would be easy to view Birdman as something more than it is. It tackles some big issues – art versus commerce, expressing yourself authentically in both creativity and everyday life; its screenplay is full of dense monologues and exchanges; its direction is imaginative and charged; its cast is made up of actors referencing their own reputations or stretching their boundaries a bit.

These are not bad qualities for a film to have by any means, but they can also create the impression that it has more substance than it actually possesses. Birdman is a smart, funny, invigorating and entertaining movie, but perhaps not all that deep.

That said, director Alejandro G Iñárritu and his cast bring a definite energy to this story of on-the-skids movie star Riggan Thomson (Michael Keaton in a role that makes good use of his gonzo soulfulness) making a last-gasp bid for credibility by writing, directing and starring in a Broadway drama and finding the lines between real life and fantasy becoming blurred.

When it’s poking fun or paying tribute to the passions of the people involved (special shout-outs to Edward Norton and Naomi Watts for their portrayals of talented people with fragile egos), it works like gangbusters. On that level, Birdman is a vibrant, searching piece of work. And that’s more than enough.