The Birdcage (1996-03-08)
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Directed By: Mike Nichols
Star Cast: Robin Williams , Gene Hackman , Nathan Lane , Dan Futterman ,
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I remember thinking that Dan Futterman was quite attractive in this film as the young "Val", but boy does his turn out to be one of the most selfish and thoughtless of characters! He turns up at the eponymous nightclub run by his father "Armand" (Robin Williams) and his consort of twenty years "Albert" (Nathan Lane) to announce he is to wed. Thing is, he is going to marry the daughter of the rather puritanical senator "Keeley" (Gene Hackman) and so they are going to have to play happy, heterosexual, families when the prospective in-laws come to visit. "Armand" manages his disappointment rather better than his lover who, inclined to the histrionic at the best of times, takes it as all as a personal slight and a mega-strop ensues. Meantime, the worthy senator gets some shocking news of his own involving a colleague and a hooker! Suddenly he needs to get away, and so to the "Birdcage" he, wife "Louise" (Dianne Wiest) and intended bride "Barbara" (Calista Flockhart) duly head. The press get wind of this, and of the fact that it's a fairly ostentatious gay club - and so are just praying to get some snaps of this visit. Can the family stay on a even keel long enough for the estranged mother "Katherine" (Christine Baranski) to arrive, and can they manage to avoid implicating the holier-than-thou politician in the mother of all scandals? Time hasn't been especially kind to this, but Williams and an excellently hammy Nathan Lane do well keeping the momentum going as we to and fro with tantrums a-plenty. Weist and Hackman work well too, but the starring role has to belong to Hank Azaria's camp "Agador" who takes crop-tops to an whole new level. Jean Pouret's original play was written with it's tongue in it's cheek and this updates, but essentially carries on, the tradition of light farce. Stereoptypes galore? Yep, but they're still fun performances that are worth a watch.