2/4  Ambitious but Doesn't Deliver
This is the kind of movie that is frustrating to watch because its ambition got in the way of true emotional resonance. Philip Seymour Hoffman stars as Caden Cotard, a theater director who one day decides to make an epic life-size play abo... (read full)

3.5/4  Synecdoche, New York
Synecdoche, New York is a surreal trip trough a mans life. I love how it plays around with time, dream and reality. Charlie Kaufman is one of the best writers of all time, and I guess it was just a matter of time when he started directing ... (read full)

2/4  Charlie Kauffman gets even weirder
There is a certain unpenetrable aura in this deep, dense, certainly ambitious cerebral drama from the mind of Charlie Kaufman, whose hand is responsible for Being John Malkovich and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. However, the lack... (read full)

3/4  Creative, Confusing, and Unique But That's it
Charlie Kaufman is a creative genius. He brings his vast creativity to this flick much like he did in all of his other films he wrote. This time though, Kaufman is the writer and the direcotor while normally he only writes.

Hoffman a... (read full)

4/4  Charlie Kaufman Does It Again
(the review contains minor spoilers)

Rating: A, 98/100 (Eternal Sunshine would be 100), 10/10, 4/4

Charlie Kaufman explores the depression of Caden Cotard, a playwright/ hypochondriac (Philip Seymour Hoffman). It all stems from his w... (read full)

5/5 cotard does lyotard
  by Daniel B. Clendenin (www.journeywithjesus.net)
The question for this complex and weird film is whether writer-director Charlie Kaufman's artistic ambition will ultimately frustrate viewer patience. When I saw the film, a couple in front of me walked out halfway through. You will probably love or hate this film; reviews have been sharply divided.

Philip Seymour Hofmann stars as Caden Cotard, a theater director mired in all the midlife crises, real and imagined, of body, mind and spirit. The film begins conventionally enough, or so it seems, but there are telltale signs early-on that Kaufman is going to play with reality itself -- a cartoon on the family TV features Caden as a character, and a realtor walks a client through a house that is permanemtly on fire. Those are two ominous metaphors.

The giveway is that the name "Cotard" bears a striking resemblance to that of the French postmodernist Jean-Francois Lyotard. We shouldn't be surprised when Caden quits his career doing theater among the "blue hairs" in suburban Schenectady, New York, where his latest production was "Death of a Salesman," and with the help of a MacArthur genius grant (a cruel irony given his circumstances) moves to a cavernous warehouse in New York City and recreates his confused life through what eventually becomes a cast of hundreds of characters. Yes, life is a stage and we're the actors.

In his book The Post-Modern Condition (1979), Lyotard made (in)famous the notion of "incredulity toward meta-narrrative," a fancy way of saying that there are no truly universal or absolute meanings or truths in life, and that all meaning is a personal or social construction. This is exactly what Caden tries to do -- he creates meaning in his life through characters who portray his life. He keeps changing the name of the play, one of which is "Simulacrum" (= an insubstantial semblance of something). He keeps saying that he "finally" knows how he wants to direct the play. Indeed, the play is never finished but is instead a building project that piles floor upon floor of sets; it never ends. For Kaufman there's a very thin line between authenticity and absurdity, genuine reality and mere representation, living life and playing roles, healthy self-awareness (however painful) and oppressive self-consciousness, and between true life and certain death.

Does Caden's effort to manufacture even the barest micro-meaning make any sense? The last line of the movie offers a glimmer of hope. Maybe.

5/5 Best Movie of the Year!
  by TinyVessels
The first thing I would like to point out is that it will be disliked by a lot of people at first, but later be loved by many just like Citizen Kane. Don't believe me? You can either 1) read Ebert's review, or 2) wait and see for yourself.

Synecdoche, New York isn't only the best movie of the year, but it is the best movie that Charlie Kaufman has written to date. It's a film that everyone needs to watch more than once to get what he is trying to say. There are scenes that is impossible to know if they are real or just a dream. Time moves at a different pace and you never really know where you're at. But the most interesting part of the movie lies with the purpose of the writing; Charlie Kaufman wanted to write a horror movie. And not just any typical genre film, but things that scare him. He puts the fear of being alone, of dying by a random cause, of being rejected in everything that you do. Kaufman does such a good job writing for Caden that you begin to feel his pain, to feel his fear. That is true talent. The movie isn't made to scare you, rather Kaufman wanted to do something original with the horror genre. [...]
If you haven't seen the movie yet don't go to the site. It has spoilers galore. Aside from the writing, the direction and the acting is phenomenal, especially the performance given by Philip Seymour Hoffman. It just goes to show you that the Oscars really do overlook some of the best movies of the year. Once you get into the movie there is no escaping it until it is over.

5/5 A beautiful, funny, sad and OH SO FRUSTRATING masterpiece
  by RMurray847 (Albuquerque, NM United States)
I don't even know how to start reviewing SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK, the new film from writer (ETERNAL SUNSHINE, ADAPTATION) and first-time director Charles Kaufman. I've been looking for a way in to this review since seeing the film two evenings ago.

Here's the best I can come up with: what WAITING FOR GODOT is to Theatre-Of-The-Absurd, SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK is to Film-of-the-Absurd. Both projects are brilliant, yet also maddeningly difficult to fathom at times. GODOT, set on a stage decorated with just one bare tree, dared to explore the very condition of living in a world without meaning. SYNECDOCHE uses all the tricks available to filmmakers to explore many of the same questions. Or perhaps it's just one big question.

GODOT is an all-time classic. It is both the epitome and the definition of absurdist theatre. Books have been written about it, and it is still stage with great regularity all over the world, by theatre companies eager to plumb new meaning (or any meaning) from it. SYNECDOCHE will probably not generate such devotion or ruminations. But to view this film is be immersed in the same feelings as a good production of GODOT will get you: to laugh, to feel great sadness, to be confused as hell and to also feel that true understanding of it is tantalizing close, and yet always out of reach.

(I'll admit right here that others will see this film and merely be extremely irritated by it, or think of it as a clever but somewhat boring mindgame. These are also quite valid reactions.)

The film begins on a seemingly typical day in the life of Caden (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) a theatre director in a smallish town in upstate New York (Synecdoche...and don't ask me why Kaufman didn't spell it Schenectady). He's near the opening of his production of DEATH OF A SALESMAN, and he seems as miserable doing what he does as Willy Loman is with his life. His clock radio comes on, and we hear that it is September 1. When Caden arrives in the kitchen for breakfast, the TV tells us it is Halloween, and moments later, a story indicating the date as November 2 is on the radio. So we get the idea, if we're paying attention, that Caden's days are all strikingly similar to each other and that if you see one morning, you're seeing them all. Time is zooming by him. To him, he might experience a week, but in fact a year goes by.

Anyway, Caden is married to Catherine Keener, a visual artist who paints very detailed and VERY tiny miniatures. Some of the funniest moments in film this year revolve around these miniatures...but it's a dry wit. (For example, here pictures are about 1" square. She's sending some to a gallery in Berlin, and for each painting, she has constructed a tiny little shipping crate, complete with excelsior.) Keener is also practically seething with loathing for Caden, because she feels he has long since given up searching for truth in his art. They have a young daughter, Olive.

Eventually, Caden's wife and child go to Berlin for a gallery opening, leaving Caden behind. And they never return. It is in these events that we begin to see how disconnected from life Caden is. He still believes his daughter is a young girl...but she ages into a young adult. Caden himself is visibly aging before our eyes...yet he doesn't seem aware of it. He's afflicted by mysterious ailments, which to him seem to come virtually all at once...yet in reality, they are illnesses that might come one at a time over a many decade span. The illnesses of aging.

During his life, Caden is surrounded by many women. Michelle Williams plays an actress who is enamored of Caden, or at least his ability to get her cast. Jennifer Jason Leigh plays Keener's best friend, who may also be leading his daughter Olive astray. Hope Davis is his psychiatrist, who doesn't seem to be on his side at all. But most important is Hazel (Samantha Morton), his box office manager and the one woman who actually seems to cherish Caden...not that he can see it.

As if this weren't confusing enough, early in the movie, Caden is awarded a grant to produce a giant, meaningful, truthful and important piece...anything he wants to do. He rents perhaps the largest warehouse in the world and plans to stage "the truth." He begins to construct a set that basically is to consist of every setting in his own life, and begins to cast actors who will play everyone he's ever known. Yet he can never bring this piece to completion because while he attempts to stage his life, he continues to have a life, which results in needing to add more and more and more to the play. Years and years and years go by.

In two hours, we get to see all of Caden's adult life from the age of roughly 35. He appears to experience it in just months. Is Kaufman saying that Caden (and therefore US) are so busy trying to control, plan or understand our lives that it simply zooms by and we miss it? Yes, that is part of it. He's also reminding us that we are each the "stars" of our own lives...and that the supporting players in our lives are the "stars" of their own lives and that we might be more or less of supporting players in their lives than they are in ours.

But in the end, it seems that Kaufman is trying to make us feel what it is like to live, to age, to come to grips with all our disappointments and to finally get down to a basic understanding of ourselves. How everything is ultimately stripped away and we are left with nothing but our most basic needs. And how if we're lucky, those needs MIGHT be met before we die. But perhaps I'm wrong. That's my impression, but I'll be every viewer takes away something different.

The movie has many, many funny and ridiculous moments. I found myself laughing out loud many times. But the overall feeling is of a sadness so deep, it can only be a sadness of the soul. It isn't a pleasant feeling, particularly as some of the moments may strike a chord...but it feels accurate.

The film is beautifully made. Kaufman has used CGI to craft a stage setting for Caden's "masterpiece" that is breathtaking in scale. The makeup in the movie is wonderful as well...some of the most subtle aging work I've seen.

Everyone is very good. Keener is always an intelligent presence who pops off the screen, this time with barely concealed anger. Davis and Williams are quite good. Later, Emily Watson and Dianne Wiest make appearances, and they are also very welcome. But I've got to give special notice to 3 performers. Tom Noonan plays the man who is cast to play Caden in the play Caden produces. Noonan is an amazing screen presence, and while for a change he isn't playing a killer (MANHUNTER, THE PLEDGE), he manages to be both sympathetic yet a little scary. Samantha Morton deserves Oscar consideration for her glowing performance. And Hoffman once again knocks it out of the park (big surprise!). It's the kind of role we think he can do in his sleep...but he finds variations and tones that force him to dig deeper than we've seen.

I'm going to stop here, because while I've told you a lot, I've only skimmed the surface. SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK is not going to be my favorite film of all time...but you can bet I'll return to it again and again, if only in the hopes of solving its beautiful and frustrating puzzle.


3/5 Interesting Idea, Tedious and Self-Indulgent Execution
  by Richard Yee (Georgia, USA)
Let me put this review in perspective. I love Charlie Kaufman. "Adaptation" and "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" are two of my favorite movies of all time. I also have a history of loving bizarre movies, even if I don't understand everything that's going on. "Brazil," "Mulholland Drive," and "Primer" come to mind.

So the problem isn't that "Synecdoche, New York" is "too weird" for me. The problem is that, while those other films used their weirdness to enhance their stories or as pure mind-bending entertainment, the weirdness of this film just felt tedious and self-indulgent. It trampled on my brain rather than engaging it. The premise is intriguing (building a replica of a replica of a replica of reality), and the beginning of the film is quirky and funny, but the story just gets more and more complicated and emotionally detached, to the point that I couldn't wait for it to end. It reminds me of what Quentin Tarantino did with "Death Proof," and P.T. Anderson did with "There Will Be Blood," and M. Night Shyamalan did with "The Happening." You get to a point where you're popular enough to do whatever you want, and then you turn out a boring, self-indulgent mess.

Bottom line: The film bored and confused me more than it entertained, but if you're a Charlie Kaufman fan or a fan of bizarre, challenging, and philosophical movies, you might want to give it a chance. Apparently, many others have had the exact opposite experience as me, so you may find this more mentally stimulating than I did.

Richard Yee, author of Deliveries: A Collection

5/5 One of the Best of 2008
  by Joshua Miller (Coeur d'Alene,ID)
Synecdoche-Noun-A figure of speech in which a part is used for the whole or the whole for a part, the special for the general or the general for the special...

Synecdoche, New York is the directorial debut of Academy Award-winning screenwriter Charlie Kaufman (Best Original Screenplay, Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind (Widescreen Edition)), who has written some of the most acclaimed films of the last several years. Like his previous screenwriting efforts, Synecdoche, New York is a complicated, thought-provoking film that floored many critics, yet somehow, almost blasphemously, escaped Academy attention.

Describing the plot of this film isn't done very easily, but it's something like this:
Oscar-winner Philip Seymour Hoffman (Best Actor, Capote) plays Caden Cotard, a theater director married to an artist named Adele (Catherine Keener), with whom he shares a daughter named Olive. When Adele goes to Berlin for an art show, she tells Caden that she only wants Olive to go with her...She doesn't come back. Caden is lonely, unfulfilled, sick, and without any joy in his life. He confides to a therapist (Hope Davis), "I'm afraid I'm gonna die. I don't know what's wrong with me and I want to do something important while I'm still here." Caden is award a MacArthur grant, which gives him unlimited money to pursue artistic endeavors. This leads him to stage a massive theatre piece in New York, amidst his flirtatious relationship with Hazel (Oscar-nominee Samantha Morton) who lives in a house that's literally on fire...And getting re-married to Claire (Oscar-nominee Michelle Williams).

The film has a ridiculous amount of familiar actors in it, but a couple more include Tom Noonan as a mysterious man who is seen lurking in the background of several scenes before winning the part of Caden in Caden's play. Also, there's Emma Watson as Tammy, who plays Hazel on stage. Academy Award-winner Dianne Wiest, who was everywhere during the 80s and 90s, also appears...This took me away from the spell of the movie had cast on me for a moment to think "Holy s***, is that Diane Wiest?"

Based on Kaufman's eccentric personality it wouldn't be unreasonable to think Caden is based on Kaufman to some extent.

The story does have Kaufman's stamp on it. Like his previous efforts it is very intricate, confusing at times, and very aware of human conditions. It's probably unjust for me to write about this film until I've seen it more than once. Kaufman has said this film exists in a sort of dream reality and it does have a dreamy feel to it and what occurs in the film isn't very linear. It's the closest thing to I've seen to seeing a dream being filmed. The way the film flows from one scene to another is just like a dream, with not everything making sense immediately, people coming and going, etc.

It's a very complicated film and it's quite impressive that Kaufman chose to direct this film having never directed one before. It was a good choice though, as there are many scenes that would be laughable in the wrong hands. Kaufman keeps everything poignant and deeply affecting.

The performances are amazing. Hoffman is absolutely brilliant. The nuance he brings to this multi-faceted character is no small feat. Tom Noonan comes out of left-field as Sammy, the creepy actor who follows Caden for 20 years before playing him. In a film that's full of great performances, this is surprisingly one of the best.

As it is a film with themes of age, life, death, relationships, time, and identity it was compared to the incredibly overrated The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. This film does have similarities to that film in the themes they share; the difference is that film was made on a bigger budget, with a script that was self-plagiarism on Eric Roth's part (anyone who paid attention while watching it will say it was "Forrest Gump 2"), but looked pretty and had great performances. Synecdoche, New York has a smaller budget, a terrific script, great performances, and it looks pretty. Beyond that, it explores the same themes as the previous film and is much more successful. This film is much more profound than that film and most of the films that were released in 2008...

This film is a fascinating and profound experience, although not a film for the impatient. Synecdoche, New York does something few films can do. It gets you on an emotional level; it plays your emotions like an instrument, making you laugh and breaking your heart at its will. It's really something special and truly one of the best films of 2008. It deserves to be seen, discussed, and seen again. Try not to sit in awe of what you've seen once it's over.

GRADE: A