The first time we see Michael Keaton in his tighty-whities in “Birdman”

The first time we see Michael Keaton in his tighty-whities in “Birdman”

it’s from behind. His character, a formerly high-flying movie star, is sitting in the lotus position in his dressing room of a historic Broadway theatre, only he’s levitating above the ground.

Bathed in sunlight streaming in from an open window, he looks peaceful.

But a voice inside his head is growling, grumbling,

gnawing at him grotesquely about matters both large and small.

The next time we see Keaton in his tighty-whities in “Birdman,”

he’s dashing frantically through Times Square at night, having accidentally locked himself out of that same theatre in the middle of a performance of a Raymond Carver production that he stars in, wrote and directed.

He’s swimming upstream through a river of gawking tourists, autograph seekers, food carts and street performers.

But despite the chaos that surrounds him, he seems purposeful, driven and–for the first time–oddly content.

These are the extremes that director Alejandro G. Inarritu navigates with audacious ambition and spectacular skill

in “Birdman”–the full title of which is “Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance).” อ่านต่อ