DISCLAIMER: this is NOT an actual superhero movie

Rating: 9/10 (15 February 2015)

I think this movie was one of the most thought out and beautifully executed movies I've seen all year. While watching it, I felt the same way I do when reading a magical realist novel by Murakami or Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Everything from the phenomenal casting and performances of the actors to the almost exclusively jazz drum-solo fueled soundtrack all worked together to create the atmospheric experience that was watching Birdman.
One of the major complaints of this movie from the general audience was that nothing really happened, that the plot was roundabout and confusing. Which is true, to a certain extent. So if you are looking for an actual action/superhero movie with a distinct plot line and a recognizable close then this movie is not for you.
However, I do not see anything wrong or bad about this movie not being plot-driven, especially since it never pretended it would be. The obvious focus of this movie is, and was from the first few minutes, portraying as realistically as possible the main character's (Michael Keaton's) post- Hollywood, late-life, existential crisis and struggle with relevancy and the importance of being relevant in this technology-driven, fast paced, attention deficit modern age. Everything about this movie was dedicated to making the audience understand and even somewhat experience this struggle.
And that's just the first layer. There are SOO many layers behind this movie. Let's start from the bottom and build it up. As I previously mentioned there's Keaton, famously known for playing Batman in Batman 1 and 2, is cast to play Riggan, a still recognizable but ex-Hollywood star who ended his career at Birdman 2. The parallels are already too real. In a desperate attempt to validate his lifelong career and devotion to acting as something substantial, Riggan risks his built-up reputation, funds, and self-dignity with an ambitiously self-written, self-directed, and self- starring play on Broadway, a rendition of "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love". As the movie goes on and we see more of Riggan's character and back story as well as learn more about the play, some similarities become apparent. So right now we have an ex-superhero actor playing a washed out superhero-actor playing a man who is desperately looking for love, almost redundant right?
All the supporting characters are loosely developed and sporadically involved with Riggan's main story line but each have their own individual shining moments where their intense, emotional and maybe even overly- dramatic performances take the stage. Laura's confusing pregnancy reveal, Sam's cutting outburst after Riggan catches her smoking pot, Shiner's first hard-on in 6 months, to name a few. Until these evocative moments, these characters served as stock characters to facilitate the complexity of the main character. But these raw performances reveal the independence of their characters from Keaton's and how they have their own place in the over arching narrative.
Then the cinematography and mechanics of this movie take it even further. The "one shot" filming of the movie makes it feel like you are experiencing everything first hand in real time, almost like you are watching a play and not a movie. A feeling that is further emphasized by the staging of the production: almost exclusively the backstage and on stage of an actual Broadway theatre. Even the minimal use of back music, if not a single jazz drum playing beats and unrecognizable tunes either in the transition between dialogues or building up the intensity of certain moments, dramatic orchestral pieces from the staged play are the soundtrack to the story.
The play format of this movie allowed it to constantly blur the line between performance and reality for the audience, a nice parallel with Riggan's struggle between delusion and reality. The reoccurring narration of Riggan's thoughts by Birdman was a reminder to the audience that we are watching a written performance while to Riggan himself, it became a constant reminder that his feelings were not based in reality, "its a mental formation" he would tell himself. The occasional appearance of the jazz drummer on screen also serves as a reminder to us that this is not real life. However, this message becomes confused when Riggan starts interacting with him, giving him spare change on the street and even telling the doorman outside of the theater to turn the music off, revealing that for Riggan, his mental formations are becoming real life. As Riggan becomes more delusional, even the audience becomes unsure about what Riggan is imagining and what is actually happening in the story. By the end, it's unclear whether Riggan has succumbed to his fatalistic delusions or has actually proved us all wrong and finally ascended to the higher being that has always been inside him.
Who knows? But it doesn't really matter either way, because feeling that uncertainty between delusion and reality is what I believe was what Alejandro González Iñárritu's intended to be the main takeaway from the movie, as well as is what I thought made this movie so worth watching.