Birdman Or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)

An ambitious failure, Birdman Or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) follows Michael Keaton’s Riggan Thomson, a washed-up Hollywood actor, as he attempts to launch an ambitious stage adaptation of Raymond Carver’s What We Talk About When We Talk About Love – with the movie detailing the various misadventures that occur in the hours leading up to the play’s opening-night performance. Filmmaker Alejandro González Iñárritu has infused Birdman Or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) with an almost aggressively pronounced sense of style, as the movie unfolds in a series of seamlessly connected, completely unbroken takes that are, generally speaking, quite hypnotic – with the visual gimmick certainly playing an instrumental role in initially capturing the viewer’s interest. It’s clear, however, that the film’s biggest draw is its uniformly stirring performances; Keaton’s incredible efforts here likely rank among his best work on film, while several of his costars, including Edward Norton, Emma Stone, and Zach Galifianakis, add more-than-capable color and backup support to the proceedings. There’s never a point, however, at which Birdman Or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) becomes the engrossing, all-encompassing experience that González Iñárritu has obviously intended, with the narrative’s almost total lack of standout sequences contributing heavily to the film’s increasingly tedious atmosphere. (The only real exception to this is an exhilarating interlude in which Riggan makes his way through New York’s Times Square in just his underwear.) It is, as such, difficult to accept the off-the-wall twists that dominate the movie’s final stretch, while the growing emphasis on “magical” moments ensures that the emotional impact of several last-minute plot developments fall completely flat – which ultimately confirms Birdman Or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)‘s status as a promising yet thoroughly disappointing miscalculation.

** out of ****