Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)

Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance), American satiric film, released in 2014, that won four Academy Awards, including that for best picture. A complex and quirky movie, it was hailed as a masterpiece by many critics, though some viewers found it pretentious and puzzling.

Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) centres on Riggan Thomson (played by Michael Keaton), an actor who is famous for having played the superhero Birdman in a series of blockbuster films and who is now trying to burnish his credentials by writing, directing, and starring in a Broadway adaptation of Raymond Carver’s short story “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love.” The film draws viewers behind the scenes of the fraught production and into Thomson’s mind. The character of Birdman taunts Thomson whenever he is alone, and Thomson exhibits magical powers under Birdman’s influence, but it is not obvious whether these are delusions. He is unable to control the play’s cast members—his girlfriend, Laura (Andrea Riseborough), the unstable Lesley (Naomi Watts), and especially the top-notch yet insufferable actor Mike Shiner (Edward Norton). He does not get along with his daughter, Sam (Emma Stone), who has recently completed a drug rehabilitation program. To make matters worse, the theatre critic Tabitha (Lindsay Duncan) promises to pan the production before she has seen it. Achieving respect on any level seems out of Thomson’s reach. On opening night, Thomson substitutes a real gun for a prop gun, and in the play’s climactic scene he shoots his nose off, prompting a rave review from Tabitha. In the final scene, set in the hospital, Thomson exits through the window—but whether as a suicide or in flight is left to the viewer to decide