5/5
Alejandro González Iñárritu's Birdman is a cinematic masterpiece. The movie follows a washed-up actor (Keaton)--made famous by gaudy superhero movies--as he prepares for opening night of his Broadway debut after years of ignominy. He must hire an abrasive but extraordinary actor (Norton) at the last minute, ingratiate himself to a prejudiced theatre critic (Duncan), and combat his own personal neuroses and psychoses in the form of his Lycra-suited alter ego, the titular Birdman.
Sometimes a movie has all the right elements for success but they just don't fit together right. That is not the case with this movie. Here every spinning plate makes every other spinning plate that much more impressive, all building together to create an unforgettable experience. The screenplay is filled with smart observations, textured discussions on the differences between movies and theatre, performance and criticism, art and entertainment. The actors take that sharp and incisive writing to the next level with equally dynamic range--subtlety and loudness, introspection and histrionics--whenever the script calls for it. And it has one of the most genuinely ambiguous endings I can recall in years.
But Birdman will be remembered most for its inspired cinematography. The entire movie is filmed as if in one long camera take thanks to advanced CGI and unerring, excruciatingly detailed pre-planning. Not only is it visually mesmerizing and logistically jaw-dropping, it enriches the film by adding an element of claustrophobia to Keaton's mental deterioration. Movies like this are why movies exist, why creativity cannot survive in the world of books and music alone. It is a wholly fulfilling work of artistic genius. Birdman is a cinematic masterpiece.
IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2562232/