It's interesting to read the comments about this film and see how many different perspectives can be pulled from it. It does lend itself to a number of interpretations, most of which say more bout the viewer than the film :).
"Birdy" (Matthew Modine) is a kid obsessed with birds. With the help of a childhood friend (Nicholas Cage) we trace his life from a lower-class urban childhood to the military asylum he inhabits today, looking for the root cause of his trauma.
***Minor spoilers ahead***
To me, Birdy was about simple people trying to cope with a large, and often cruel, world. There is the recurring theme of authority figures pushing them into roles they don't want. Their parents, the police, the dog-catcher/butcher, and finally the army, all trying to use or control them in some way. Each finds a way to escape the pressures, Cage by immersing himself in typical boyish pursuits like weightlifting and girls, and Modine in his fantasies of flight (a typical metaphor for freedom). For Modine, the inability to fit into the pre-defined roles becomes so overwhelming that the lines between fantasy and reality blur.
In the end, they find that the only real way they've coped so far is to draw strength from each other, to say "screw the world" and grab a few precious moments of shared insanity and freedom (liberating the dogs, attempting to fly using man-made wings and a bicycle, and, of course, the final scene).
All in all, a touching and funny movie who's message is sometimes lost on people. I can't guarantee you'll love it, but I did.
If nothing else, I thought the film was worth watching for the last 30 seconds ("....what?..."). Enjoy :).
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