The theatre can be taken as a metaphor for life, but when it takes the place of life, look out. This “art” film is like a psychological snowball rolling downhill, gaining momentum at a dizzying pace till it must, inevitably, come to a stop. It’s about relationships (lots of great female roles), art and creativity, our sense of time and proportion, aging, disease, death and acting out our lives as opposed to living them. Profound in places and just bewildering in others, the chronology is hard to grasp at times, too. Lots of Shakespearean conventions, like the play within a play, gender swapping, soliloquy…. Well worth watching for Hoffman’s performance, too.