A meticulously crafted story with stellar performances.

Rating: 10/10 (7 February 2015)

Birdman is a dark comedy about Riggan Thompson, a washed up actor who puts on a play, throughout the film he battles his ego and attempts to recover his family all before the opening of the play. With a methodical story, Birdman becomes a film that is easy to follow and still talks about serious themes, such as drug addiction, control, adultery, relevance, film critics, friendship, lying, celebrities and of course superheroes. All these themes are woven flawlessly into the script that is delivered perfectly thanks to the great direction of Alejandro G. Inarritu and stellar performances from Michael Keaton, Zach Galifianakis, Edward Norton, Emma Stone and Naomi Watts. Keaton was the only person who could play Riggan Thompson, the chemistry between Keaton and Stone was great, the constant banter between pretty much everyone in the cast was a great touch and the weight of the film was so effectively executed in the dialogue. Alejandro Inarritu's directing was meticulous and precise, but the cinematography by Emmanuel Lubezki was fantastic, the idea for the film to look like one take was an intelligent idea and it allowed the film to feel like a play, which was a nice touch and was an effective technique.
Birdman talks about the negative effects of drugs, yet taking drugs is accepted by and sometimes even encouraged by society. The film dives into the role of the director and how their ego can sometimes come in the way of the production, sometimes causing damage to their work, it also talks about clashing egos between cast and crew, the manipulative ways of the director and the struggle for absolute control on what should be a collaborative project. The film comments on relevance through Riggan's ever changing struggle to become relevant once more. But Riggan isn't the only one who struggles with being relevant, we see the supporting cast also struggle as they too wish to be relevant. The film touches on film critics and makes the statement of how most film critics just give labels to everything and don't talk about story or structure, but rather they focus on grudges or jealousies they may hold for performers in the production. The film touches on celebrities and how they take a lot more credit for their work than they should, it also comments on how people instantly forget about one celebrity after x amount of years and move onto the new celebrity who is doing the exact same thing as the last celebrity.
In summary Birdman is a excellent film that has been beautifully shot, crafted and performed into a masterpiece. Birdman is the best film of 2014 for me and it is definitely worth watching. 10/10.