The Birdcage

1/14/2024

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 o

2/1/2026

The Birdcage (1996) (rewatch) Directed by Mike Nichols Mike Nichols' The Birdcage is the American remake of La Cage aux Folles, with Robin Williams and Nathan Lane as a gay couple running a drag club in South Beach. When Williams' son brings home his fiancée whose parents happen to be ultra-conservative politicians (Gene Hackman and Dianne Wiest), the setup becomes a classic farce: can this flamboyant household pass for "normal" long enough to survive one dinner? Williams and Lane absolutely kick it. Both are tremendous actors and comedians, and both turn in top performances here. Williams plays the relative straight man, grounded and capable, while Lane unleashes controlled chaos as Albert, the club's star performer who can't quite hide his true self no matter how hard he tries.