South Beach. Armand Goldman is the owner of the gay night club "The Birdcage" and in a relationship with Albert. This becomes a problem when Armand's son Val (20) announces that he is engaged to Barbara Keeley (18) whose father is Kevin Keeley, a conservative Senator who is publicly against LGBT community. Armand and Val thus decide to hide Albert during Kevin's visit to their house and bring Val's mother Katherine to play Armand's wife and pretend they are conservative. When Kevin and his wife Louise arrive to meet, Albert suddenly appears disguised as a woman, playing Val's mother, but then Katherine arrives late, and the disguise is revealed. In order to hide Kevin from the reporters, Armand disguises him as a drag woman in his show and escorts him through the back exit. Val and Barbara marry.
Mike Nichols' 15th feature length film, a one which reunited him with Elaine May who wrote the script based on the French comedy film "La Cage aux Folles", is one of the rare good American remakes that is able to be both respectful and wildly comical at the same time as it contemplates on the relationship between liberalism and conservatism. Robin Williams is great as the gay club owner Armand, and Gene Hackman shows his underrated comical side as the conservative Senator Kevin, though other actors also have bits and pieces where they rise to the occasion: in one of the best sight gags, Calista Flockhart's character Barbara is talking with her father Kevin in his office about her engagement, and as the telephone rings, she maniacally fast grabs it to answer the call first. Albert's antics as he cannot perform on stage because he thinks Armand is cheating on him are funny in one great dialogue: "I've done everything I could to make myself attractive to you. I've lost and gained over a 100 pounds in the last year".
Albert is finally calmed down upon taking the "pirin" pills, and Armand finds out it's just aspirin with the first two letters, "A" and "S", scratched off. The middle part of the film somehow takes too long and isn't that fun, yet the encounter of Armand and Kevin in the finale is great—trying to hide their Jewish name Goldman, he keeps changing it, so Kevin finally protests: "Is it Coleman or Coldman?" Cue Williams' impeccable comic timing as he mends the situation by quickly replying with: "Coleman! The "D" is silent!" A missed opportunity is the abrupt ending of the charade just as Christine Baranski's character shows up, who was announced for so long just to have her appearance suddenly cut short, when instead it would have been far better for the story to prolong this comedy complication even longer. Nichols directs the movie in a conventional, but competent manner, and some more subversive observations manage to appear here and there—Kevin's friend, politician Jackson, is supposedly good because he is a conservative, but is a hypocrite, a cheater and a liar when it is revealed he died while having sex with a prostitute who is a minor, whereas the gay couple of Armand and Albert are loyal, moral and decent people, forced to be something they don't want to during the delicious dinner sequence in the finale to try to fit in. "The Birdcage" needed more burlesque jokes, more punchlines, yet as it is it demonstrates that quality comedies are a very satisfaying experience.
Grade:++
No comments:
Post a Comment