9) It has one of the year’s most unforgettable (and endlessly debatable) final scenes
I know a lot of people who loved Birdman until the final scene. It’s one that deserves a lot of discussion. With Iñárritu’s interest in exploring the mix between the real and the magical, there are, naturally, several interpretations of what happened with Riggan in the hospital.
(SPOILERS AHEAD)
Regardless of whether you think the last few minutes of the film indicate that Riggan is alive or dead, the abrupt finish is something close to perfect. Films that end on an ambiguous note can aggravate audiences (and it seems like, for several viewers, Birdman was no exception). Still, considering the magical realist elements within the dark comedy, a tidy wrap-up would have been far more ill-suited.
In the scene, Riggan lies in a hospital bed, after shooting himself on stage. Jake and his family are relieved to see him, with Sam walking in with the flowers she was supposed to buy him in the opening scene. In this sequence, Riggan obtains all that he dreams of: a rapturous review in the New York Times, the love of his ex-wife and daughter, the attention of a public interested in seeing whether he is doing well, no Birdman voice haunting his psyche. The final scene recalls the text that opens the film, from Raymond Carver’s “Late Fragment”:
And did you get what you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself beloved on the earth.
In this writer’s interpretation of the last scene, this entire sequence – finishing with an implied leap out of a window – does not take place in the real world, but in Riggan’s mind. Everything is just a little too perfect and complete to read the scene as literal, rather than a manifestation.
However you look at this moment, it spawned vigorous debate among film fans. It is strange and surreal, but gave filmgoers a spark of discussion – something that can be sorely missing from more mainstream titles that do too much to cater to the whims and needs of the audience, and too little to challenge us. It was a fantastic way to finish off a film that often made us question what was real and what was make-believe.
