Underrated, imho...

I loved Al Pacino in this role and am disappointed by the split reaction among critics. The TIFF audience I first saw it with seemed to really enjoy themselves.

Pacino is so good at making the private public in his best characters that he convinced me that this is who he really is. Or who he must be in real life.

Of course, he's probably nothing like this guy in real life, but the way he suggests this character's inner life was really compelling.

And I laughed a lot. This role is a reminder how funny Pacino can be within a dramatic role.

I'm not sure what to do about the critique of yet another young woman having a thing with a guy at least her dad's age. I dunno, don't these relationships exist in real life? Aren't most rom-coms almost exclusively centered around people the same age? I bought Greta Gerwig's fascination. And I bought her subsequent actions.

Pacino also played another creative type in "Chinese Coffee", who is kind of the flip side to this character; a 50ish writer who never made it. Both of the men he has created in these two movies are fully-realized characters filled with nuance, flaws, private obsessions and demons.

I had a great time at this movie. If "Birdman" is a 10, this is a 9. I was engaged the whole time, laughed more often than I thought I would, and thought the performances were strong across the board. First really good movie of 2015. Levinson and Pacino's best work since they first teamed up about 5 years ago for "You Don't Know Jack".