SPOILER ALERT! :

did fred ballinger had sexual intercourse with mick boyle as a child? is fred ballinger gilda black? because after mick’s suicide he was looking at the black bird at the doctors place in the cage while talking to the doctor. and then the camera shifted, and ballinger is seen in the „cage“ wearing also still black. does this mean, that the bird in the cage is fred ballinger? on a metaphoric level? and why does he looks at the black bird talking about gilda BLACK ? does it mean, that gilda black is fred ballinger?

and then, what does it mean, that mick never told fred that he was just holding hands with gilda black in youth?
they say they only talk about the good things, but this IS actually a good thing – that he was holding hands with her?! so why is it then a bad thing, … this holding hands with gilda black? so again, could it be that gilda black is maybe fred ballinger?

and then why mick told him while walking on the street in the middle of the movie, that the REAL tragedy was he don’t even remember if he had sex with gilda black?
it looks like there is a kind of psychic issue in him in this case …..

and if the scene with the black bird in the cage at the doctors place, after the suicide of mick, is kind of referring to fred ballinger (because he is suddenly also from the camera perspective in the „cage“) , than does it mean, that mick’s tragedy is that he don’t remember if he had sex with fred ballinger, when he was a child?! fred is definitely much elder then mick boyle. and it is not clear in the whole movie, how long they both know each other.
that would explain why they only talk about the good things, and never the bad.

and then also WHY fred ballinger didn’t helped mick before he jumped of the terrace. he was just sitting there and watching. he didnt shout after him, he didnt run after him. he is the real monster in this movie – as also his daughter told him in a long speech, when they were lying on the wellness beds…
She told him that he was damn cold to his children and his wife. And that he had affairs. And that he experimented homosexually – what again would refer to this strange things mentioned above.