This is a movie by a brilliant director about the other side of the lights on Broadway.  We are going through a phase of movies ‘based on real stories’.  Another phase is about actors on the skids, including actors who can just drop in and who know the lines already (Venus in a Fur), or who have diverting personal lives.  As well as Birdman, there is one on the way with Al Pacino.  If you like your humour blacker than pitch, and if you like the supernatural at full throttle in the Latin American mode, so that the hero literally takes wing and  flies out the window, you might enjoy this movie.  If you don’t, you won’t.  You will see it as silly, precious, pretentious self-indulgence.  Sadly I fall into the second group, so I did my dough.  I think many who claim to be in the first group are like those who acclaim minimalism – they are scared to stand up for themselves.  At least we get an insight into why the West End is different.