A major technical achievement.

Rating: 8/10 (2 August 2019)

Birdman (2014)
Post middle age Riggan (Michael Keaton) twenty years past his peak movie career as action hero Birdman, is making his Broadway debut. He is directing and staring in his own adaption of a Raymond Carver story. He has gambled his life savings and his soul/sanity in an homage to Carver and a chance to make his career relevant once again and worthy as a whole.
The acting is sublime from Keaton, (daughter) Emma Stone, (fellow stage actors) Naomi Watts and a top draw Edward Norton.
They are helped by the direction that gives the perception of a movie recorded in a single take with very long scenes and non obvious cuts, though in most cases "time" has clearly elapsed.
70% of the soundtrack is a mostly wonderful jazz drum solo (there were a couple of minutes I fell out of love with it before I confirmed) that (it) mirrors the clutter of Riggans mind (though not exclusively) heightening the crescendo of certain scenes. It really is a technical tour de force.
So what's not to like? Well not much. The story is captivating, it's well structured and there's a fascinating ambiguity to Riggan (and that's with mentioning his "other" internal voice).
One can't help admitting it's more than a little self indulgent, though never pretentious. The story isn't wholly coherent but gets most of the way there.
It is incredibly endearing though. It's constantly funny though more dark and dry than lols. The final frames are over engineered but cute enough to confirm time well spent.
Perhaps not enough to reach the highest highs but there's so much to enjoy here. EIGHT