by Stan Schwartz
It was inevitable, I suppose. I'm talking about the politically-correct backlash against Mike Nichols' entertaining, new comedy The Birdcage. The detractor's arguments are as familiar as they are tiresome: Hollywood has once again given us flamboyant gay male stereotypes which in no way reflect actual gay male reality, but instead exist solely to perpetuate straight notions of gayness in such a way as to not threaten or alienate said straights.
True, The Birdcage is a fantasy, but it has no pretentions of being anything else, and should not be judged as if it were anything else. As it happens, the film is well made, sharply written and ultimately quite touching. It also boasts a cast of some of the finest comic actors around, all of whom play beautifully, and one of whom -- Nathan Lane -- is nothing short of sensational. Obviously, for the would-be politicos, a correct political agenda is far more important than such mundane matters as directorial craft, writing and performance. Never mind the fact that looking to Hollywood for any kind of political agenda is sheer folly anyway.
The Birdcage, as you all probably know, is a re-make of the 1978 French film farce, La Cage aux Folles, which in turn, went on to be an extremely gaudy, sentimental slop of a Broadway musical.
The main thing is the sheer enjoyment of the performances. Everyone is wonderful, but what is truly amazing is how Robin Williams (a comic genius in his own right, well known for his mania) turns in a remarkably restrained performance. As has been already pointed out elsewhere, Mr. Williams literally and graciously hands the movie over to Mr.Lane who -- no surprise to this reviewer -- rises to the occasion and is simply sublime.
And as for those P.C. detractors -- they're all just, well, a drag.
And worst of all, these stereotypes do not comprise a positive role model for young gay men just coming out. Well, to these pseudo-socially-concerned cultural critics (who, interestingly, I might add, hail from the political right as well as from the left), I have only one thing to say: LIGHTEN UP!
The plot in brief: For the sake of his young, about-to-be-married son Val (Dan Futterman), Armand (Robin Williams), owner of a drag club in Miami, agrees to pretend to be a respectable heterosexual during a dinner visit from Val's future in-laws (Gene Hackman and Dianne Wiest), themselves ultra-conservative. The trouble is, Armand's lover, an outrageous drag queen named Albert (Nathan Lane), must be gotten totally out of the way. Rather than be banished, Albert shows up in drag, posing as Val's mother. And just to add to the comedy, Val's real mother (Christine Baranski) also shows up at a late moment. The charade goes through its standard farcical permutations, and by the final de-masking, all is (you should forgive the expression) set straight, and the young lovers are united.
It is silly to compare Mr. Nichols' film point-by-point to the French original (much less to the musical!), as many have already done. The cultural leap from French to American and the significant historical leap from 1978 to 1996 dictate that the present film be a new entity altogether. Veteran screenwriter Elaine May understands this and wisely invents a new film for its new context. She does this chiefly by placing the story firmly within the very current battleground between the Liberal Left and the Conservative Right. Of course this is all fairly obvious and broad, but it's farce, not Chekhov. And it is done with a goodly amount of wit, style and humor. The film never takes itself too seriously, and though it is an expression of the liberal Left (how could it not be?), The Birdcage never stoops to the level of out-and-out political agenda.
If you go into The Birdcage with a clear understanding of both what it is and what is not meant to be, you can't possibly leave without having had a rollicking good time.