The Birdcage

Watch: The Birdcage

3/8/19961h 59m

Theatrical Release (US)

~ Come as you are. ~

Overview:

Middle-aged gay life partners, Armand Goldman, a Jewish drag club owner, and Albert, the club's flamboyant star attraction, live in the eclectic community of South Beach and have raised a straight son. Now, their newly engaged son, 20-year-old Val, wants to bring his fiancée, Barbara, and her ultraconservative parents home to meet his family for the first time. By Val's request, Armand pretends to be straight, not Jewish and attempts to hide his relationship with Albert, in order to please Barbara's father, controversial right-wing Republican Sen. Kevin Keeley.

Director:

Mike Nichols

Status:

Released

Language:

English

Buget:

$31,000,000.00

Revenue:

$185,300,000.00

Key words:

coming out
florida
homophobia
drag queen
nightclub
senator
politician
based on play or musical
remake
conservative
cross dressing
gay parent
lgbt
political conflict
south beach
playing straight
drag club

Cast

Robin Williams

~ as ~

Armand Goldman

Gene Hackman

~ as ~

Senator Kevin Keeley

Nathan Lane

~ as ~

Albert

Dianne Wiest

~ as ~

Louise Keeley

Dan Futterman

~ as ~

Val Goldman

Calista Flockhart

~ as ~

Barbara Keeley

Hank Azaria

~ as ~

Agador

Christine Baranski

~ as ~

Katharine Archer

Tom McGowan

~ as ~

Harry Radman

Grant Heslov

~ as ~

Photographer - National Enquirer

View full cast & crew

Reviews (1)

CinemaSerf
Written 1 year(s) ago
7
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.