1) It gave one of our great actors the comeback he needed
The first time I heard that the director of 21 Grams was making a movie about an actor who had once played a superhero making a comeback, I was intrigued. But from the time Michael Keaton was announced for the role of Riggan Thomson, I was hooked. Beyond the obvious meta touches, Keaton had spent far too long out of the Hollywood spotlight, being reduced to steal scenes in middling films like Need for Speed and The Other Guys.
It was an ingenious idea to trap an actor who we wanted to see back at the top of his game in the role of a man trying to regain the fame and power he had lost. That self-reflexive layer added a surreal touch to Iñárritu’s film that ultimately worked. In the role of a has-been mounting a comeback, a great actor finally achieved a new pinnacle of performance with what may be the defining role of his career. Boasting some of the same acerbic wit that made his turns in Beetlejuice, Jackie Brown and many other titles so refreshing, while also making us feel for a man trying to make his last minutes of fame count for something, Keaton deserved a lot of credit.
Riggan’s ferocity and feeling felt very real, and in a movie filled with magic and meta moments, the performance resonated beyond what any of us could have expected. Ralph Fiennes, Jake Gyllenhaal and Eddie Redmayne may have given better performances this year, but Keaton’s return to his dizzying prior heights may have been the most memorable portrayal of all.