Why I love this Movie

Rating: 9/10 (2 September 2019)

I can totally understand why this movie does not attract universal appeal. The entertainment is concealed within the story and figuring out your personal interpretation of what it represents - and that I acknowledge may be nothing much but it'll take some time to get there and perhaps several screenings.
Many directors at some point pay homage to their profession (Once upon ATI Hollywood, 81/2, The Player, Hail Caesar etc) and this could be Inarritu's. On one level it is about acting and the debate about whether theatre or film requires the most skill/talent or whatever.
The cast are first and foremost players within a film about a play - explaining as some have commented the stilted performances; trying to carry to the person seated in the balcony. To reinforce this there are limited cuts - like acts in a play. The players have to remember pages of script and learn stage markers.
To further compound there are the casting ironies; Keaton as the super intense over energised charachter that we know so well (which he says is most unlike him ahem!) and Norton playing the script finagler that we are lead to believe that he is. Plus their prior roles as superheros brings a biographical element to their casting along with emma from Spiderman and Naomi possibly extending the role of Betty/Diane from Mulholland Dr.
Two hollywood characters feeling they need to play the boards to be truly recognised in the eyes of their profession and another who feels that's the last place he needs to be to act (or live - for him real life is acting). A critic who can make or break a play describing "hollywoods" as celebrities. Does this set the scene for where we are about to be asked to be sympathetic? Plus there is a certain air of disdain around the achievement of "Birdman"; "Directing and starring in your own play? That's ambitious".
Overlayed on this is human frailty of wanting to be respected and already having been venerated as a larger than life character who was approached with such intensity that the actor became him (at the cost of family) including those in this case imagined, superhero gifts.
With the approach of personal, professional and financial failure that not even these gifts can overcome the only option to change this scenario is to die on stage; gain professional attention, legendary status and avoid the sting of failure.
Was the end a death dream or homage to the superhero industry where no injury is too great that it can't be overcome and where the hero gets to fly away and fight another day or was the whole thing a play about a play after all... its left up to you.
Intriguing story within a story within a story, great script, clever casting and brilliant acting. It his best for me.