Birdman: He’s not just a lawyer anymore. He’s not Michael Keaton, either. In Julia Jackman’s “100 Nights of Hero” he’s the god who imposed a sexist, homophobic order on humanity, because he had nothing better to do with his time. Everything was fine, Jackman’s film reveals, until a powerful white dude decided women and queerness were bad because that made him feel better. I assume he imposed all the racism too, but “100 Nights of Hero” doesn’t really focus on that.
“100 Nights of Hero” tells the story of a young woman, Cherry (Maika Monroe), who married a man, Jerome (Amir El-Masry), just like she was supposed to. But it’s been a while and she’s still not pregnant. If she doesn’t have a baby soon, she’ll be executed, because Birdman commands it. And it can’t possibly be Jerome’s fault, even though he refuses to consummate their marriage and it’s literally all his fault.
Enter Manfred (Nicholas Galitzine), the beefcake gadabout. He offers Jerome a wager: Jerome goes away for one hundred nights while Manfred stays at his house, trying to seduce Cherry. If Manfred can’t seduce her, Jerome wins, and his wife will be executed for not getting pregnant. If Cherry does have sex, Manfred wins and he gets the deed to Jerome’s castle. And also Jerome’s wife will be executed for infidelity.
Needless to say, it’s not a good deal for Cherry, who has only one person on her side, a servant named Hero (Emma Corrin). They are … best friends. You have to add a pause between “They’re” and “best friends,” because the movie literally does. Really good … friends, that’s what they are. Roommates. Lifelong roommates. Very hetero roommates. And … friends.
Cherry doesn’t know that Hero is in love with her, or that she’s in love with Hero, or that women are even allowed to love each other (although legally, Birdman forbids it). Then Manfred shows up, shirtless, covered in the blood of an elk he probably just killed with his bare hands. He wants take care of Cherry’s … needs. Oh my. Cherry needs rescuing, so Hero formulates a plan: Every time Manfred gets cocky, Cherry will hear Hero tell a story to block his… cockiness.
Hero’s story is a cautionary tale about Rosa (Charlie XCX), who learned how to read and write even though it’s illegal for women to learn literally anything except chess and falconry, and they’re not even allowed to be good at those things, because all hail Birdman. Hero’s tale is a metaphor, and a powerful one, although it’s a little thin on a narrative level so it’s hard to imagine it’ll take 100 nights to tell it — unless Hero’s prose is so purple it makes Prince jealous.
Jackman’s world is very proper, which only calls attention to how silly it is. Naming god as we know the concept “Birdman” and dressing his disciples up in silly bird masks, doesn’t make it any less horrible when they condemn women and queer people to death for arbitrary reasons. But it does remind us that everyone who does this in the real world is just as much of a clown, and that nobody should take their foolish, evil ideas seriously. Let alone turn them into laws or dogma. (Sorry, I mean “birdma.”)
Adapted from the graphic novel by Isabel Greenberg, Jackman’s artifice goes some way towards hiding “100 Nights of Hero’s” sometimes flimsy production values. They filmed at a vast estate but the overall aesthetic has more in common with local art house theater, and sometimes that amplifies the fable-like nature of the story. Many of the performances are mannered and stiff, but the characters who are free from oppression — or at least, living and thinking as if they were — seem more comfortable in their own skin. To live in a repressed world is to live falsely, according to Jackman’s film.
However intentional it may be, the arch quality of “100 Nights of Hero,” from the costumes to the performances to the story itself, both highlights the film’s strengths and becomes a minor distraction. On one hand this reads like a Chaucer story, albeit a modern one that tackles topics even Chaucer would have struggled with. On the other, arch is still arch, so it may be hard for some audiences to appreciate Jackman’s wavelength.
Is this kitsch all a metaphor for loves half-lived under illogical laws, or is it just a lot of kitsch? It seems to be the former but if you can’t get past all the mannerisms, and there sure are a lot of mannerisms, it may come across like a low budget, very queer Wes Anderson riff. Not that that’s a terrible pitch but it’s still reductive, and “100 Nights of Hero” is trying — with modest success — to get at something much deeper, about the way stories inspire us to imagine better lives for ourselves. And if we can’t live those lives, at least our stories can inspire others. It’s a marvelous message, mostly delivered.
