Certainly an Ambiguous Challenge

Rating: 7/10 (23 May 2015)

Michael Keaton and Edward Norton are terrific. They are wonderful actors in nearly every sense of the word. I was engaged most of the way, but then the flying sequences. He is indeed a broken man. He is probably schizophrenic, listening to himself discuss his failures through the persona of the character he used to play. Enough has been written about this movie (it was the darling of the Oscars) for me to offer much. Nevertheless, I feel that we need to play fair with the audience. If this was a demonstration of what is wrong with Broadway and the Broadway crowd, let us know. There is a great scene where he confronts a powerful theatre critic who can make or break a show with a bad review (I never understood the power of these people) and chastises her for her vindictiveness and and arrogance in ruining peoples lives when she, herself, must not face the music. I'm sure her editors would disagree, but what he says is true. Unfortunately, as we roll to the end, we are made to make up our minds. I suppose it's OK not to be one with the character, but the ending is truly ambiguous, to a fault. Fantastic acting by the whole cast, yet it left me really cold at the end.