Reel Classics: The Birdcage

June is Pride Month, and in cel­e­bra­tion today’s Reel Classic looks at a com­e­dy from 1996 star­ring Robin Williams and Nathan Lane as a gay cou­ple in The Birdcage.  The film also stars Gene Hackman and Dianne Wiest as a straight cou­ple. It was direct­ed by Mike Nichols and the screen­play was adapt­ed from the French film La Cage aux Folles by Elaine May.

Armand Goldman (Robin Williams) is the own­er of a drag club in Florida called The Birdcage. His part­ner Albert (Nathan Lane) is the main attrac­tion in the club per­form­ing as “Starina.” They live in an apart­ment above The Birdcage with their gay Guatemalan house­keep­er Agador (Hank Azaria).

Armand and Albert’s son, Val (Dan Futterman), arrives to inform his par­ents that he plans to mar­ry a young woman he has been see­ing.  Barbara (Calista Flockhart) hap­pens to be the daugh­ter of an extreme­ly con­ser­v­a­tive Senator, Kevin Keeley (Gene Hackman) and his wife Louise (Dianne Wiest).  Senator Keeley is also the co-founder of a con­ser­v­a­tive orga­ni­za­tion called The Coalition for Moral Order.  Needless to say, this cre­ates a great deal of con­cern for Val’s parents. 

Meanwhile, Senator Keeley has his own seri­ous con­cerns as a scan­dal has arisen after the co-founder (and fel­low Senator) of the Coalition for Moral Order was found dead in the bed of an under­age sex-work­er.  The Keeleys decide to go to Florida to meet the groom’s par­ents to escape the press.  Barbara has told her par­ents that Val’s dad is straight and that his name is Coleman (to hide the fact that he is Jewish).  She has also told her dad that Mr. Coleman is an attaché for Greece. 

Armand is not hap­py with the idea of retreat­ing to the “clos­et” but agrees to go along with the ploy.  He gets some friends to redec­o­rate the apart­ment and tries to get the flam­boy­ant Albert away from the house (to no avail).  Agador takes on the per­sona of a Greek but­ler named Spartacus.  Albert offers to por­tray Armand’s straight uncle but Albert can­not pull it off. 

In the mean­time, Armand has con­tact­ed Val’s bio­log­i­cal moth­er, Katherine (Christine Baranski), with whom he had a one night stand many years ago.  She agrees to come and play the part of Mrs. Coleman. 

The Keeleys arrive at Armand’s home, but traf­fic has held up Katherine and she is not there.  “Where is Mrs. Coleman?” they ask.  Albert decides to save the day by dress­ing up as a con­ser­v­a­tive mid­dle-aged woman and presents as Mrs. Coleman, some­how con­vinc­ing the Keeleys. 

As usu­al, no spoil­ers, but the sto­ry plays out in an out­ra­geous­ly fun­ny man­ner that includes the fam­i­lies danc­ing to Sister Sledge’s “We Are Family.” 

The Birdcage was released in March 1996 to very pos­i­tive reviews and much suc­cess at the box office.  It opened as the num­ber one film when released and remained there for three weeks.  The film cost $31 mil­lion but grossed over $185 mil­lion.  The Birdcage is seen as ground­break­ing, as it was one of a very few films that fea­tured LGBTQ char­ac­ters in the lead.  The cast were award­ed the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast.  It also received an Oscar nom­i­na­tion for Best Art Direction.

Film crit­ic Roger Ebert wrote “What makes Mike Nichols’ ver­sion more than just a retread is good cast­ing in the key roles, and a wicked screen­play by Elaine May, who keeps the orig­i­nal sto­ry but adds lit­tle zingers here and there.” 

This was actu­al­ly a reunit­ing for Nichols and May as they had been a pop­u­lar com­e­dy team in the 1950s and 60s.

The crit­ic for The Washington Post talked about the social  com­men­tary in the film, not­ing “While politi­cians like Keeley talk a good game of fam­i­ly val­ues, it’s Armand and his non­tra­di­tion­al clan who have the sta­ble home life.  They are a fam­i­ly.”  Another crit­ic in Variety wrote “Just as in their rou­tines when they were a team in the late 1950s and ear­ly 1960s, Nichols and May are at their best with polit­i­cal and cul­tur­al humor.  A reac­tionary politi­cian is an easy tar­get, of course, but the digs at Hackman’s pub­lic image-obsessed sen­a­tor are relent­less­ly clever and on the mark, as are the jibes at unscrupu­lous journalists.”

The crit­ic for The New York Times was very com­pli­men­ta­ry of Robin Williams per­for­mance, writ­ing “. . . this is one of his most cohe­sive and least antic per­for­mances.  It’s also a mis­chie­vous­ly fun­ny one.  He does a fine job of inte­grat­ing gag lines with semi-seri­ous acting.”

The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) com­pli­ment­ed the film for “going beyond the stereo­types to see the char­ac­ters’ depth and human­i­ty.  The film cel­e­brates dif­fer­ences and points out the out­ra­geous­ness of hid­ing those dif­fer­ences.”

Nathan Lane was quot­ed as say­ing “Homophobia is still alive and well but there’s some­thing about that film that touch­es peo­ple because it’s ulti­mate­ly about fam­i­ly, what you do for your fam­i­ly, why you love your fam­i­ly even though they dri­ve you crazy.  Then ulti­mate­ly — not to sound corny — it’s about love. It’s about love in both fam­i­lies and com­ing to accept one anoth­er in their differences.” 

Gene Hackman and Dianne Wiest were both very well known actors, but Calista Flockhart was still very new to the big screen.  She would soon go on to become very pop­u­lar as Ally McBeal in the TV series.  Christine Baranski was also a very famil­iar TV actress, win­ning an Emmy in the series Cybil.  Nathan Lane was at first hes­i­tant to take the role of Albert as he was expe­ri­enc­ing much suc­cess on Broadway.  He was to star in a revival of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.  However, Mike Nichols real­ly want­ed Lane for the role and con­vinced the pro­duc­ers of the play to hold off on the play to allow Lane to be in The Birdcage. 

Other actors con­sid­ered for the role of Armand includ­ed Anthony Hopkins, Kevin Kline, Jim Carrey, and Billy Crystal.  Diane Keaton was con­sid­ered for the role of Louise Keeley but declined. 

A remake of La Cage aux Folles was con­sid­ered in the 1980s with Frank Sinatra and Dudley Moore.  However, Moore declined, and the project was shelved. 

The Birdcage was nom­i­nat­ed for the American Film Institute’s list for the Top 100 Funniest American Movies in 2000. 

The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) gives The Birdcage a rat­ing of 7.2 of 10.  Rotten Tomatoes gives it a crit­ics score of 84% and an audi­ence score of 81%.  In search­ing my Roku device I found the film avail­able for free stream­ing on mul­ti­ple sites includ­ing:  Roku Channel, Tubi, PlutoTV, freevee, Hoopla and Kanopy (both avail­able with your Clark County Public Library card). 

The Clark County Public Library also has a copy of the DVD on the shelf.

Information for this Reel Classic review was gath­ered from Internet Movie Data Base (IMDb), Rotten Tomatoes, Turner Classic Movies (TCM) and Wikipedia.

I’ll be back soon with the next Reel Classic, but before I leave you with the trail­er below let me remind you that if you enjoy these clas­sic movies please join me on the sec­ond Tuesday of each month at 6:00 PM at the Clark County Public Library for “Ron Kibbey’s Comedy Classics.”  I present a clas­sic com­e­dy film usu­al­ly accom­pa­nied by a vin­tage car­toon.  Popcorn and drinks are pro­vid­ed.  More infor­ma­tion about the next film is avail­able on the library’s web­site and Facebook page, as well as WinCity Voices Facebook page.