Birdman

Illustrated upon the progress of his latest Broadway play, a former popular actor's struggle to cope with his current life as a wasted actor is shown.

Director: Alejandro González Iñárritu (as Alejandro G. Iñárritu)

Writers: Alejandro González Iñárritu (as Alejandro G. Iñárritu), Nicolás Giacobone

Stars: Michael Keaton, Zach Galifianakis, Edward Norton

Story Plot
Riggan Thomson is a faded Hollywood actor best known for playing the superhero Birdman decades ago in a series of films. He is often tormented by the mocking, critical inner voice of Birdman and frequently visualizes himself performing feats of levitation andtelekinesis. Riggan hopes to reawaken his career by writing, directing, and starring in a Broadway production of a loosely based adaptation of Raymond Carver's short story "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love".

The adaptation is produced by Riggan's best friend and lawyer, Jake, and also stars Riggan's girlfriend, Laura, and Broadway debutant Lesley. Riggan's daughter Sam, a recovering drug addict, serves as his assistant. During rehearsals, a light fixture falls onto Riggan's co-star Ralph; Riggan tells Jake that he believes that he caused the accident so he could upgrade the cast. At Lesley's suggestion, Riggan replaces Ralph with the brilliant but volatile method actor Mike Shiner, who is also Lesley's boyfriend. The first previews are disastrous: Mike breaks character over the replacement of his gin with water and attempts to rape Lesley during a sex scene. Riggan is incensed by press coverage praising Mike's performance in the show, but Jake encourages him to continue. When Riggan berates Sam for using cannabis, she tells him he is expendable and that his play is nothing but vanity.

During the final preview, Riggan sees Sam and Mike kissing. This further fuels his suspicion that Mike is a rival and potential threat. Riggan, a little freaked out, goes outside to take a smoke break wearing nothing but his underwear and a robe. He accidentally locks himself out of the theater, but his robe becomes stuck in the door. He is forced to walk in his underwear through Times Square to get back inside; amateur videos of the incident go viral. After the final preview, Riggan, still deeply shaken by the events of the last few days, meets the influential critic Tabitha Dickinson, who tells him she hates ignorant Hollywood celebrities who only "pretend" to be actors and promises to "kill" his play with a deprecating review. Riggan gets drunk and faints in the street. The next day, as he walks back to the theater, his visual and auditory hallucinations intensify, and he fully hallucinates an extended conversation with a now visible Birdman, who tries to convince him to make another Birdman film. Riggan visualizes himself flying through the streets ofManhattan before returning to the theater.

Prior to the opening night, and with his hallucinations temporarily subsiding, Riggan meets Sam, who shows him the viral video of him walking through Times Square in his underwear. Rather than faulting her father for this, she admires him for it and comes to see him as more human and, finally, more accessible to her needs as his daughter. On the opening night, before the final scene of the play, Riggan confesses to his former wife Sylvia that he attempted to drown himself in the ocean after she caught him having an affair several years before. He also tells her about the inner Birdman voice he constantly hears in his head, which she ignores. After Sylvia wishes him luck and leaves the room, Riggan, whose character in the play commits suicide, replaces his prop pistol with a real loaded gun, and prepares to actually commit suicide in the closing scene of the play. As the performance reaches its final scene, Riggan shoots himself in the head on-stage. The play ends with a standing ovation from all in the audience except Tabitha, who abruptly leaves.



The next day, in a hospital, Riggan is revealed to have botched his suicide, merely blowing off his nose, which has been surgically replaced overnight. Jake visits him in the hospital and reveals that Tabitha gave the play a rave review, calling his suicide attempt "super-realism," a new form of method acting. Sam visits Riggan and soon steps out for a moment. He walks alone to the adjoining bathroom in his hospital room where he crudely dismisses Birdman and, seeing some birds outside, climbs onto the window ledge. When Sam returns, Riggan has disappeared with the window left open. She looks down at the street, then slowly up to the sky and smiles.