Birdman Review – Birdman  or The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance is a American Black comedy released in 2014. Riggan Thomson is a washed up Hollywood actor who is very famous for his role as a superhero by name Birdman. But he has given up the job of doing the role of a superhero and is giving everything into put up a show at the Broadway. The voice of Birdman constantly criticizes him for the decision he has taken.

The movie is constructed like a single shot for most part of the movie similar to the attempt Hitchcock had made in Rope. This treatment itself makes the movie special as it is not easy to put a continuous tone to such a complex screenplay. The performance of Michael Keaton is perfect and there is equally powerful performance by Edward Norton as a broadway actor who practices Method Acting.

Director Alejandro G. Iñárritu have taken the risk of keeping the climax open ended as according to them that would be the most powerful ending for the script rather than ending this in a logical way. Anything else I write here would be a spoiler.  You could watch this and draw your own interpretation.  There is a very interesting sequence in the movie where the lead actor is interacting with a famous critic and the dialogues have a very strong take against the stereotypical way a critic looks at creative work and they have nothing to lose.

High Points: Single shot construction for the movie, The Birdman sequence in Times Square, the screenplay and the performance of Michael Keaton and Edward Norton, the dialogues are pretty interesting.

Low Points: Not many low points apart from the fact that there is a risk of the audience not entirely connecting to the plot

Overall Birdman is a brilliant piece of work that would be remembered for a long time and would act as an inspiration for many new wave film makers.

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