The Birdcage: A Broadway Adaptation

Mike Nichols has had a very theatrical movie career. Though his work has varied from Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? to his Tony winning direction of the Monty Python inspired Spamalot. Even his less serious work on film such as this one has always had a theatrical tone to it. In this case it's an Americanized version of a French play La Cage Aux Folles.Our story begins in South Beach Miami where Armand (Robin Williams) runs a successful drag queen cabaret show with his partner Albert (Nathan Lane) as the lead Starina. On this fateful night Armand's son Val, whom the two raised, has come home to tell them he's getting married. Though neither Armand or Albert are thrilled with their college aged son getting married so early they accept it. However the already awkward situation is about to take a major left turn when Val fiance comes into the picture. Barbara (Calista Flockhart) and her parents (Diane West and Gene Hackman) are in the middle of a political fiasco. Without giving away any of the major jokes Mr. Hackman plays a conservative senator from Ohio who is the co founder of the Coalition For Moral Order and his other founder does some rather unscrupulous things. In order to please her parents Barbara quickly makes up some lies about Val's family but the lies have to stick since her family is headed down to Florida to use the wedding as political leverage. This leaves the Miami household is disarray as they scramble to play it straight, turn their houseman (Hank Azaria) into a butler and somehow prevent Albert from giving it all away.

I personally still enjoy this movie for a number of reasons.

#1: How it handles the gay characters. In particular how it handles the relationship between Armand and Albert. From the get go it feels very much just like your typical husband and wife scenario. Albert is more feminine and Armand is more masculine but at the end of the day they're still with each other. And though many of the characters may be flamboyant they're not making out all over the place. In this movie something like that would simply be distracting. The environment does the job. So here it's about portraying the three gay men as human beings. Rather funny human beings but nevertheless human

#2: Variety in comedic approach. With the subject matter in hand of course there is going to be a great deal of physical comedy and over the top antics but the comedy also comes from more subtle angles. For instance, as Mr. Hackman watches himself on a Crossfire style show he giggles with glee as the conversation quickly turns into a shouting match. When his wife makes a positive comment about the show. Hackman turns and states simply "It's the smartest show on TV" as everyone on the TV continues to scream at each other. We also avoid it being the Robin Williams show were he just yucks it up for an entire two hours. While I love the guys stand up and many of his other movies if he was flying off the handle all the time like he does in some movies I wouldn't have liked it as much.

#3: Each actor playing to their strength. Nathan Lane gets to be his flamboyant self which is for the best. Robin Williams may be a more serious actor but he still does natural human reactions better than most people out there. Hank Azaria should get an award for most hilarious supporting roles at some point in his career. For Gene Hackman fans imagine him almost making fun of his role in the French Connection.

That being said there are some qualms I have with this movie. Something that I run into frequently is that while awkward situations can be funny if they're too awkward I begin to feel awkward myself and simply want the moments to end. Sadly the climactic dinner is chalked filled with these moments and ends up being my least favorite part as a result. In addition, while Armand and Albert aren't the most stereotypical gay couple all they seem to do for half the movie is the bicker constantly. Most of the time it's because Albert is being a diva or jealous and it doesn't seem like the strongest example of a functional relationship though it most likely done for comedic affect.

At the end of the day your opinion of this movie is most likely going to depend upon how you view the issue at hand. If you're all for gays and and comfortable watching men prance about in colorful costumes as women then this will more than entertain you. If not this movie will probably enrage you but chances are if that's the case and you already knew about this movie you already boycotted it. I personally enjoy this movie because it has zany characters doing funny things and offers clever insight into the concept of family and also how John Wayne walked in the movies. Hint: That's a reference to probably the best line in the movie