I love Birdman. If that film was a person, I’d make a life-sized cut-out of it, take a selfie of us together, and update my relationship status. Does that sound creepy? It probably is, but love often isn’t rational, and I irrationally love this film.
But even with my restraining-order-provoking love for this film, that ending had me stumped.
And I like that. I like being stumped by a movie’s ending. It gives me something to mentally chew on and revisit after I’ve left the cinema. Since then, I’ve replayed the scene over and over in my mind, conjuring up a possible explanation for it all. So take my hand as we go through the ending of Birdman – together.
Throughout the majority of the film, Riggan (Michael Keaton) has moments of apparent delusion that are (for the most part) visible only to him. The telekinesis, the Birdman persona, the ability to fly – these scenes are only perceived by him, illustrating his internal battle against his ego and sense of self-worth.
Then there’s the daughter Sam (Emma Stone), a trouble-bound young woman known to inject herself with her own brand of crazy, possibly through a used heroin needle. She reckons her whogivesashit attitude is a reflection of “daddy not being there” – a rather clichéd rich-white-person complaint as the film alludes.
This father and daughter have been at odds with each other throughout their entire lives, but through the course of Riggan’s stage production (AKA the midget hitting his balls with a tiny hammer), Sam grows to understand (and relate to) her father’s mania. One scene even shows them bonding over Riggan’s “kinda cool” impromptu change to the ending at a preview, as well as him going viral in his tighty-whities march through Times Square.
Their relationship is vital to the film’s ending.
After shooting himself on stage to a rapturous standing ovation, Riggan wakes up in a hospital bed with a new, beak-like nose. When he checks out this fleshy lump of irony in the bathroom mirror, he sees his alter ego in the Birdman costume taking a rather awkward shit in the toilet. After exchanging glances, Birdman bows his head in shame before Riggan says “Goodbye, and fuck you.”
Riggan has officially ‘flushed’ the mental pest that has been nagging him, the self-doubt dressed in a ridiculous Birdman costume suggesting “You can never be more than this.” With the success of his play, he proved that he could express a work of art – “something REAL” as Edward Norton’s Mike would say – that people would recognise OVER Birdman. He is no longer known as ‘that Birdman guy’, hence, the new nose is ironic.
Except that it’s not actually irony – it’s acceptance. He can never NOT be Birdman in the same way that Robert Downey Jr. can never NOT be Iron Man. However, Riggan proves that he doesn’t ONLY have to be Birdman – he can be ‘that Birdman guy who made that bonkers stage play’. The Birdman identity will stick with him like the nose on his face, and he’s fine with that.
Then he jumps out a window.
Was this real or was this imaginary? If it’s the latter, why could Sam witness it? If it’s the former, then… erm… what?
Well, it’s imaginary, I believe. Riggan has freed himself from the mental shackles that have been keeping him down, so from his ‘unique’ perspective, he can ‘fly’. Usually, this is a revelation that he’d keep to himself, but Sam is let in on her dad’s sense of triumph through a perspective they share (you can call it ‘crazy’ or ‘creative’ or whatever).
Not only has Riggan learned to embrace and define his own identity, but in this moment, he has become closer to his daughter in the process.
Alternately, maybe Riggan’s new shnoze had turbo jets under those massive nostrils and he decided to give them a whirl. Both explanations seem plausible, TBH.
