So dazzling is the cinematic footwork that it proves easy to overlook
the uneasy blend between genuine theatrical navel-gazing and satire of
the theatrical navel-gazing mindset. There is not a weak performance on
display. Keaton allows all dignity to fall away as he makes an

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Iñárritu’s own script is certainly wary of Riggan’s self-absorption.
But the importance given to the awful trials of being a thespian do
suggest scenes from Nigel Planer’s satire I, An Actor. Copies of Jorge
Luis Borges’s Labyrinths are waved conspicuously. Darling, that
subtitle. “The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance”? I ask you. Either these