Actors in "Real" Life

Rating: 5/10 (19 January 2015)

It's hard to give 5 for a film that has super acting and direction, the best depiction of backstage life in a theatre I've seen, and some great scenes but...that's what my rating is. The reason is how I felt when I emerged, pretty crap, the film is so unrelenting in leading you down, down, down, to some pit of despair.
I'm irritated also by reviews I read that didn't give a proper feeling for what the film is. They gave me the impression that it was a dark comedy of a mid-life crisis; it is that I suppose though not particularly funny but it is also at heart nihilistic though it doesn't give us a lot of reasons why with the characterizations.
A strange film: the plot is not original but the direction and exposition is. Michael Keaton carries the film very well and is a likable actor; on occasion I felt he was acting at acting, maybe that's appropriate in a film showing actors acting in a play, but his despair at times seemed forced.
Anyway that's it for me, a film of many parts that simply went on too long, and too far down a road to nothingness.