Synecdoche, New York

What a trip. You can't expect a conventional picture from Charlie Kaufman, but this was super weird! So weird that half the people left the theatre before the end, either confused or offended by what they saw. Poor Charlie witnessed the whole scene and I suspect it really got to him.

The film's very much Spike Jonze in style, but grander and more ambitious than Malkovich and Adaptation. The first hour is hilarious, next half an hour is still good and you're struggling not to lose threads, the last half an hour gets really messy and tends to drag a bit. It might be due to Charlie's inexperience as a director, or it might be intentional and a means to express one of the points of the film (futility and dragging of time), or the topics simply grew too difficult to deal with, but it seems to me that the last part could have been made a bit more compact for a stronger impression. Seven to ten minutes less would have helped, if that was possible.

Perhaps Jonze would have done a better job in terms of pacing and craftsmanship, but the content is still really strong. The film had been five years in the making and you can feel the issues that Kaufman wanted to address brimming over. Illness, death, transience, love, relationships, passion, devotion, art, theatre, identity, hope, so many topics dealt with in a painfully sincere way. You both laugh and get emotionally affected all the time along with being confused by the twists of the plot and the grotesqueness of the imagery. You get many 'this is so true' moments that you completely identify with and then you suddenly get struck by a completely surreal scene. The film certainly reinforced my impression of Kaufman as a bastard son of Woody Allen and Tom Stoppard.

The cast is wonderful. Philip Seymour Hoffman has to be singled out for his magnificent performance. I have never been much of a fan of his and I was somewhat bothered by the idea of him as a lead in the next Kaufman movie. I didn't think he had a presence for that, but did he prove me wrong! Appearing in virtually every scene, the man has carried this film on his shoulders. He has created a completely lovable and ludicrous character and conveyed Kaufman's ideas splendidly.

Catherine Keener is as fun and adorable as ever! As a fan, I was really overwhelmed by this experience. I saw it two nights in a row, and spent hours discussing it with friends. The film is a bit difficult to comprehend instantaneously and Kaufman himself insists it requires a second watching. It is an amazing picture, rarely thought-provoking, and I can't wait to see it for the third time.

To start, let's make it clear that this movie will not be for everyone; I don't think any form of authentic art is. There is no flaw in this truth or in the people who do or do not find themselves moved by the art in question- it just is.

I do believe there are people who more intuitively and naturally reflect inward, on death, on life- the meanings of all these things; it is a natural state for them. And I believe there are people as equally blessed and cursed to not think very deeply on these matters. I think this film will find a comfortable home in the hearts of the former. Now, of these "inner seekers"- I believe you have all variations of folks- those that seek deeply and find beauty, connection, and great joy. There are those seek deeply and find isolation, grief, and deep wells of sadness. There are those who find some semblance of balance between the two. I myself lean more towards connection, and subsequent joy because of that… I found this movie to be profoundly moving- on almost a primordial level- and I believe- in a hopeful way. Don't get me wrong, I cried many times during the movie and didn't want to leave the theater when the film was finished. I held back the wells of whatever it was that was welling up in me until I got to my car and then unloaded some body shaking tears. It wasn't sadness, though… it was… something else. I don't really know yet. One thing I do know is that all of Kaufman's films seem to affect me in this manner. After the initial viewing- I know distinctly how the movie has affected me emotionally- I can FEEL it. I am not capable of defining that feeling, or explaining why that feeling has erupted (it is clear to everyone that his plot and content are generally all over the board and it usually takes several viewings to pull any real intellectual analysis from them)- but I certainly am conscious of something new and fresh happening inside my emotional hard wiring. I find that a phenomenal feat in the face of a sea of art which relies on very standardized ways of pulling it's consumers in emotionally. Do you remember how you felt after Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind? I remember walking out and feeling very hopeful about the nature of love- in a whole brand new way. Not in the contrived, standardized Sleepless in Seattle kind of way… not to judge that- but there is something amazing about an artist who can make you feel things you are not sure you've felt before. That, to me, is authentic art. This really isn't about valuing one thing more than another- just offering great respect to someone who has taken your mind and heart to places it hasn't been before. It is nice to visit those old comfortable haunts, but this… well, like all of Kaufman's films- will take you somewhere entirely new- if you are predisposed to that kind of wandering.

I got to see a screening of this in Boston, and let me admit to the fact that I consider this film a masterpiece. It is a rare entry into the market: an ambitious film, a gamble that, sadly, makes me question how much success it could garner in the mainstream box-office.

Charlie Kaufman, however, is not a screenwriter/director who inherently aims his sights on the box-office or the mainstream (anybody who questions this has to question Being John Malkovich). Instead, his greatest strength is a boundless creativity and insight into the qualities of humanity, and Synecdoche, New York is no exception. Rather, it is the apex of Kaufman at his most insightful, his most ambitious, and (as his directorial debut) his most hauntingly beautiful.

The plot itself is a contradiction of simplicity and complexity: to say that it is about Philip Seymour Hoffman trying to put on a larger than life play is an accurate statement, yet it completely fails to capture what Synecdoche, New York tries to convey. It is not a conventional film, but instead it is ambitious: a mixture of conventional narrative and surrealist cinema, one where the beauty of the film does not solely lie upon the plot, but the way every minute quality of the film ties together to form the tapestry.

The actors all do their parts brilliantly. I am hard-pressed to find any performance that was weak or, for that matter, standard of the Hollywood formula. Hoffman is brilliant in a role that utilizes his physical and acting gifts, and he takes the character through the spectrum of its possibilities. All the other actors also performed brilliantly, although what struck me as wonderful about the acting choices are that the majority of the actors present are not "glamorized" for the screen. Rather, the blemishes, the age, and the imperfections that make them ordinary are ever present in the film, making Synecdoche, New York seem beautiful in a strange, "dirty" way. Much like a city, its majesty lies not in grungy street corners or clogged rain gutters, but in the whole image that is comprised of such small, necessary imperfections.

And that, ultimately, is why Synecdoche, New York is such an ambitious, beautiful film. It is not a perfectly crafted standard screenplay, nor a perfectly executed piece of cinema. At least, Kaufman's work is not perfect under the current criteria of modern cinema. Synecdoche, New York is a gamble; a mixture of images and music and dialogue and acting that follows Kaufman's heart and his meditations on several ideas: namely, those on life and death and the connections all around us. It is dark yet funny, evocative and haunting. It is perfect in being a work of art that tempts us to find explanation, yet ultimately needs none compared to the feelings they evoke in us.

Viewers who are looking to see the difference between "art" and "entertainment" need only see Synecdoche.

Theater director Caden Cotard (Philip Seymour Hoffman) is physically falling apart. He is working on the play Death of a Salesman with his leading lady Claire Keen (Michelle Williams). His wife Adele Lack (Catherine Keener) goes on a trip with their daughter Olive. Box office girl Hazel (Samantha Morton) keeps flirting with him. He gets a grant and rents out a giant space. He starts building a play where the cast does everyday things. The world inside the giant space starts becoming more real than the real world. Caden and Claire become parents with a girl as reality and fiction become indistinguishable.

This is a highly ambitious movie coming from the outsider mind of Charlie Kaufman. The start is pretty slow especially with a depressed Philip Seymour Hoffman. The movie turns very loopy, imaginative and utterly original. This is a movie trying to be life itself. It loses some of its cohesiveness as it tries to be too much. At times, I'm both resigned to not being able to grab hold of the story and interested to see more loopy ideas. I give Kaufman full marks for being unrestrained in his vision but this may need a bit more to make it an accessible watch.

"All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players . . ."

Synecdoche, New York, like the literary term in its title, might stand for all our lives as director Caden Cotard (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) attempts a gigantic stage construction of to depict his tumultuous life. Hamlet 2 it is not—it's a serious attempt by cerebral and creative writer Charlie Kaufman to deal with the muses and mistakes of a life worth noticing, in this case where Caden has won a MacArthur.

Caden eventually creates a discursive and massive stage play peopled by ex lovers who help him try to gain meaning out of a sometimes bleak Brecht or Beckett landscape. Kaufman takes us into and out of time and place, characters and ideas, so that to survive the viewing, we must allow him to digress and symbolize to distraction. The recurring motif of a house on the brink of burning down signifies the nearness of insanity and even death.

The specter of Death overshadows all else and serves as a catalyst for the artist's grand opus. It also allows him to muse on the meaning of life and the challenges of art, the former leaning toward a pantheistic notion that we are all made up of the people we have loved. Shakespeare's notion of the world as stage is more appropriate here than ever.

Artistically Kaufman is more in David Lynch land than anywhere else; I'm comfortable with that although the producers should not wait for the profits to roll in anytime soon—it's a challenging mess.

Caden Cotard: "I know how to do it now. There are nearly thirteen million people in the world. None of those people is an extra. They're all the leads of their own stories. They have to be given their due."