Official Synopsis
Robin Williams and Nathan Lane team up with a top-notch cast in this hilarious comedy. Williams delivers an uproarious performance as Armand, a gay cabaret owner whose son announces he’s marrying the daughter of a right-wing politician (Gene Hackman). It’s an outrageously funny culture clash as Armand and his drag-queen partner Albert (Lane) try to transform themselves into straight shooters at a dinner party and pull the chiffon over the eyes of the uptight senator and his wife (Dianne Wiest).
1996 seems like forever ago (18 years). Times were changing, the grunge era of the country was fading a bit and opening into new age music, and the internet was just starting to hit its strides towards what we now know it. And homosexuality as an open-air topic was still being met with tons of resistance, but like the Berlin wall coming down in 1989, conservative society’s view on homosexuality was crumbling away as well.
The film starts off as humorous chaos, as Armand (Robin Williams) and Albert (Nathan Lane) are visited by their son Val (Dan Futterman). Val delivers news of his impending wedding. The wedding is a simple setup that doesn’t allow for too much comedy, but it feels real because Armand and Albert show their parental displeasure of their 20 year old son getting married. Eventually the couple collapses into a supportive nature and stand behind their son.
Then things change a bit.
Barbara (Calista Flockhart), the woman that Val is marrying, is the daughter of a extremely conservative senator named Kevin Keeley (Gene Hackman), who is going through political hell in an election year thanks to his immoral political partner, who died in the midst of doing immoral things with a prostitute. To stem the tide of looking bad, Val requests his fathers to be…well…less gay and more conservative — in other words, to hide their true selves.
Resistant to the idea at first, they both succumb to it in order to help their son. The process of changing their feathers is hilarious, as you get to see some great comedy created between Williams and Lane (the John Wayne walk is priceless). After a while, the characters do their best to act ‘straight’. Of course, as you can imagine, the comedy from this is loud and quite abundant.
Keeley, his wife and Barbara show up to meet their future in-laws and discuss the impending marriage and soon find that Val’s mother (Lane) and father (Williams) are not what they seem.
What’s remarkable about this film is that while you’re laughing at Armand and Albert as they bumble about around a conservative senator, you’re seeing a reflection of society’s attitude toward the gay population. You’re seeing that a conservative society doesn’t want to see two men together, nor do they want to know that two men living together and raising a child together can just be as normal as a heterosexual couple doing the same. It’s sad in a sense that what these two characters are doing is comedy because the message they’re sending at the same time is one of just wanting to be accepted for who they are. I guess that’s the gold of the film, as you the audience are rooting for Armand and Albert just to be themselves and show Keeley that his conservative view on life might not be the best view. It’s a beautiful reflection of homosexuality and society at the time, neatly tucked in a comedic wrapping.
In other words, it’s a brilliant way to deliver a message.
The Birdcage is probably one of the more powerful comedies to rear its head from the 90s. It blatantly showed how terrible society could be towards the topic of homosexuality, and more importantly how far we still have to go with putting away old ideals.
It also showed towards the end, when Armand and Albert help out the senator without judgement, how society could progress towards happiness and acceptance, if only people could let go a bit and be allowed to be themselves. Ultimately, As long as you can love, it doesn’t really matter who you love.
The Birdcage is one of my favorite films to come out of the 90s. It certainly has a wonderful balance of predictable comedy, while also delivering a powerful, and necessary, social message that needed to be heard — even today.
As for the Blu-ray release from Fox, this one actually is quite good. Unlike other big film releases from 20th Century Fox (Rain Man comes to mind), the transfer to HD looked to be a solid one. There is no graininess, no artifacts and the color scheme of the film (which is very Miami) bodes well for the format. You get some wonderful pinks, blues and lots of gorgeous neons that shine through pretty splendidly. There aren’t any issues with color banding or compression either. It’s a solid transfer that deserves your time and attention.
Sadly, as one window of brilliance opens, a door closes across the way. There are no special features, which is sad. I would have loved to hear some commentary about this one.
