The Transmigration of Michael Keaton, or Birdman is Awesome

“Birdman” will make you rethink everything you ever thought about Michael Keaton. He’s not Batman. He’s not Beetlejuice. He’s not some washed up actor. Michael Keaton is something else entirely. “Birdman” is proof of that.

The film takes its headline actor’s unique place in pop culture seriously, having Michael Keaton play an aging actor haunted by a superhero character that’s since defined his career. While it’s nice to see that Michael Keaton obviously has a good sense of humor about himself when it comes to picking roles, his character in “Birdman, or the Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance”  (hereafter abbreviated to it’s superhero moniker) goes way beyond the self-deprecating and into the existentially questioning, verging on the insane. Simply put, it’s a role that only Michael Keaton can play.

And play it he does as Riggan Thomson in the middle producing, directing and acting in a broadway adaptation of Raymond Carver’s seminal short story collection “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love.” That’s the most simplistic way of describing Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s new film and to say that it is so much more doesn’t even say enough. The director puts us in the perspective of camera as an observer that tracks and floats around the St. James Theater on 44th street. Thomson goes from room to room experiencing endless crises in the span of three days leading up to the play’s premiere.

The 72 hours or so we’re placed in Riggan Thomson’s world feels like a weird mesh of pitch black humor, dramatic monologues, budding romances, failing marriages and one adrenaline fueled sequence through Times Square. It’s weird, but this film’s weirdness demands your attention for every moment it’s on screen. The propelling factor behind this mash up of a movie is Thomson’s belief that he can do anything. Like he actually believes he can fly like the Birdman character he played. Thomson is told this by the Birdman voice in his head (a gravelier sounding Michael Keaton doing his best Christian Bale as Batman impersonation) that he can control things with his mind like open doors, move objects, and smash things. We soon learn this is some delusional coping mechanism Thomson uses, but it gives the film a surreal touch that not many other movies could pull off.

As if Thomson’s hallucinations and undiagnosed schizophrenia weren’t enough material for Inarritu and his screenwriters (Nicolás Giacobone, Alexander Dinelaris, Jr., Armando Bo and the director himself), there’s the fact that everyone around Thomson is going through their own shit. First we have Jake (Zach Galfianakis), the success driven agent trying to wrangle money, actors, the press and the theater all so Thomson can successfully put on the Carver adaptation. The pressure starts to come down when actress Lesley (Naomi Watts) ropes in her boyfriend/acclaimed stage actor Mike Shiner (Ed Norton) as a last minute fill for an injured player. Shiner is the monkeywrench thrown into Thomson’s already unstable production bringing his amazing acting chops as well as disastrous habits like drinking on the set. If things weren’t bad enough,  Thomson’s just-out-of-rehab daughter, Sam (Emma Stone) acts as his personal assistant. Albeit one with more teen angst, who hangs aroundt for all the rehearsals and previews. Adding more fuel to this powder keg ready to blow is Thomson’s fellow actress-turned-girlfriend Laura, who reveals she’s pregnant with his child.

So yes, that’s a whole lot to cover in just two hours, but Inarritu does it and he makes it look easy, too. That’s thanks to cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki who shot the entirety of the film (excluding the beginning and ending sequences) so it appears as one tracking shot, following the characters as they move down hallways, run up stairs, hide under bedsheets and other seemingly mundane acts not usually caught on camera with no cuts. Lubezki shot this film to make three days look like it could clock in at two hours and that’s just magical once you stop noticing the camera movements at all and let the film’s world become your own.

These long takes might read as a laborious chore to sit through in the theater, but that’s not true here. A propulsive drum score by Antonio Sanchez and the diverse performances of the actors involved, allows each shot that pans down stage or scales a building to act as a breather for the audience in between the tense scenes that waver between slapstick comedy and pure theatrical drama.

“Birdman”, or the Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance,  at it’s best moments seems like some sort of play that was somehow filmed expertly by Inarritu and company. The film isn’t exactly a stage play though and that becomes clear by the time the cast and director has built up the crescendo of characters, monologues, camera flourishes, and special effects into a climactic moment that could only happen in the movies. “Birdman” is cryptic in its ending–open and hopeful for Riggan Thomson while still being unclear. That doesn’t take away from any of the zany energy bouncing around in this film. It makes it better.

Rating: [The fact that you’re reading about this movie and not watching it right now scares me so yeah it’s that good]

Now playing at Angelika Film Center (Lower East Side) and AMC Loews Lincoln Square 13.