Not an ideal double feature with ALL ABOUT EVE...maybe A DOUBLE LIFE

Rating: 4/10 (17 January 2015)

A passel of better than average performances - not excluding Edward Norton as a stereotype of the kind of "method" actor too undisciplined to be a real actor or survive two shows in the real commercial theatre (Dustin Hoffman pulled this off far more amusingly - and surprisingly, more BELIEVABLY in TOOTSIE!) are the chief glories of BIRDMAN. Top billed Michael Keaton goes Oscar fishing with a predictably against type depiction of aging insecurity, but ultimately the cast cannot overcome a script which is at best excellent imitation Mamet, at worst pretentious claptrap.
The film strives for artistic credibility - given the nine Oscar nominations, with some success - by Hitchcockian long tracking shots and self conscious close-ups (in part necessitated by the incorporation of the back stage areas of a Broadway house as the set and a kind of third lead) and commercial success by having its leading men in their under shorts or less as often as possible, but as back-stage drama or comedy (it tries to be somewhere in between when not flirting with attempts at soaring fantasy) it struck this viewer as one of the least successful yet put on film.
The Mexican writer/director Alejandro Inarritu and the fervent followers he has developed, should have a look at MEETING VENUS (1991), A DOUBLE LIFE (1947) or even, God help us, ALL ABOUT EVE (1950) to see how this sort of thing can actually be done with a sense of reality. It isn't just that the play under consideration pretends to open (as it might have 35 years ago) with less than a week of previews and no "out-of-town" tryouts, or that actors walk in the lobby of one theatre and into the auditorium of another (one of the most enjoyable aspects of the movie for a theatre person is the street views of the Broadway theatre district circa 2014 - including the homeless man's over-emoting a soliloquy from HAMLET at the start of Keaton's manic depressive hallucination which nearly saves the film) or its depiction of a hate filled Broadway critic which was dated when Cary Grant did it hilariously in ARSENIC AND OLD LACE (1944) or even the old Hollywood trope of an audience member chatting backstage in his dressing room with the lead of a show JUST before he has to make his final entrance in the last scene of the play on Opening Night!
Inarritu's model here seems to have been the bizarrely surreal BLACK SWAN (2010) - the first out-loud laugh at the performance I saw followed the most unfortunate parallel to the earlier film near the end. More power to them. If you liked that template (I loathed it), you will probably have a wonderful time at BIRDMAN.
One side note: that crack from the daughter about the source story for the play Keaton's character has written and stars in being "50 years old" is a JOKE typical of the film aimed at her immaturity! The story was first published 38 years ago in 1977. For those who were aware of Raymond Carver, his all too brief career (mainly in his last decade) ended with his death AT only 50 in 1980.