5/5 Amazing Film, changed the way I watched and felt about movies.
  by Brett Howe (St Paul, MN)
When I saw this movie in theatres, I didn't appreciate what I was watching. This film is immensely thought provoking and although everyone may not see it the same, if you truly want to be "challenged" by a film, this is one for you. I have watched it at home, and it is brilliant. The original score enhances the feel of this movie as well.

5/5 One of the best movies of all time
  by You Know Who
"Synecdoche, New York" is a true artistic masterpiece. It is a very profound work of genius. Thank you so very much, Charlie Kaufman.


1/5 Almost, almost intolerably heavy-handed.
  by Bob Humbug
From a straightforward approach, it seems to make the mistake of trying to make sense out of chaos by saying that it doesn't make any sense.

Still, I might almost call the film self-loathing, which begs me to consider it more as film criticism than simply just a 'film.' It's almost if the trappings of film are set up as a lab-rat style maze with no solution and 'Humanity' is dropped into the mess and cursed with trying to find a way out.

If I were to go so far as to say the glass is half-full with this film, and I'm not sure that it is, I'd say that it's a pioneer in a whole new genre, which might be aptly termed "The Epic Short." The film seems to have about a ten, perhaps fifteen minute attention span, and nothing seems to internally recall anything beyond it.

It's just that I'm just not sure that actually making this film was a good idea. While any of this may sound great in theory or on paper, the film itself, for me, loses all novelty and the very basic quality of watchability really quickly.

So, yes, I hated it, and I'm pretty sure I was supposed to--but without any of the guilty pleasures of entertainment, I found it lacking hooks.

2/5 WHY NOT TITLE IT "SUPPURATION, NY"?
  by David R. Eastwood (Long Island, NY)
"Synecdoche," as some people may recall from their freshman high school English classes on poetry, is a figure of speech where a part of something stands for the whole (or vice versa): e.g., "We hired ten hands" (meaning "ten people").

Apparently this confused and confusing film is in some way meant to seem (A) deep and very intellectual and (B) like a metaphor (or figure of speech) for "Life" (with a capital "L").

Also (apparently) its main character is suffering from different shades and degrees of mental illness throughout most of it, so that neither he nor the audience of the film has a clear idea of what is REALLY REAL vs. what is surreal or symptomatic of a disturbed person's perceptions.

Do you recall the "fantasy" scenes of Diane Keaton's character in LOOKING FOR MR. GOODBAR? Or the drug-trips in YOUNG GUNS? Or the schizophrenic delusions of John Nash in A BEAUTIFUL MIND? Those are crystal clear to us, compared to many of the scenes in this film.

Do you enjoy reading the novels and short stories of Franz Kafka? Or the fiction and drama of Samuel Beckett? At least with them, we can find intelligent and intelligible meaning.

My impression of this film is that it is pretentious, pseudo-intellectual suppuration, whose point could have been made in fifteen minutes or less. Throughout this long, painful film, I was deeply saddened to see so many fine actors wasted.

If I were only allotted seven words for this review, I would have written, THIS EMPEROR IS NOT WEARING ANY CLOTHES.

1/5 Nuke a [...]whale for jesus
  by curtis nishimura (new york)
[...]

For a film with so distinguished a writer and cast I actually have nothing good to say about this movie and that is a shock even to me. If you want to be a jerk and buy this anyways to defy reason I say go for it. You'll have wasted some money and lost 3 hours of your life you could have used on your death bed to tell your family you love them, and now they will never know.