Synecdoche, New York - A-

On DVD and Blu-Ray

The most challenging and least accessible film since Inland Empire has a theater director putting on a large scale play in a huge New York warehouse after his wife takes their daughter to Europe with her lesbian lover. Things get more abstract and complicated as the movie progresses, spanning the next 40 years of his life. His private life creeps into the play and eventually he has actors playing himself and those close to him. He directs other people’s lives and later hires someone that will direct his own.
A great central performance by Philip Seymour Hoffman is surrounded by a ridiculously talented female ensemble (Catherine Keener, Michelle Williams, Samantha Morton, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Hope Davis, Emily Watson, Dianne Wiest). Tom Noonan steals every scene he’s in, giving one or two memorable speeches. A priest has another great speech toward the end. The script is quirky and interesting and full of one unique idea after another. It’s probably a little too smart for its own good and will certainly alienate a fair percentage of the viewership. Some will be baffled by it’s thin plot that builds on emotions rather than actions; others will be put off by its complexity. I can see why some people call it pretentious, but I think its ambitions are ably supported by the performances, strong writing, musical choices, art direction, and insight.Charlie Kaufman is already responsible for 3 of the finest, most original, and funniest screenplays of modern times (Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), and while Synecdoche, New York may have veered too far toward demanding at the expense of coherence, the intelligent, thought-provoking concepts pile up so quickly, your head will spin. It certainly requires multiple viewings and on the DVD, Kaufman reveals that he wants each viewing to be different than the last (like a theater performance). Kaufman directs for the first time and while he achieves some spectacular visuals, he also allows some rather unpleasant things to remain in the final film (green and gray poop, the tattooed stripping daughter) that someone else with more popular sensibilities (say, Spike Jonze?) would have rightly eliminated. Some of the stuff left in is tough to watch, emotionally brutal even, but that’s like real life. The film wants to encapsulate the human experience, to understand it – and is mostly successful. I need (and want) to see the film many more times and I’m glad there’s someone like Kaufman out there – consistently breaking new ground to achieve art. A-