Review: Synecdoche, New York (2008)

[Mark R. Leeper]

                       SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK
                (a film review by Mark R. Leeper)

     CAPSULE: Generally clever screenwriter Charlie Kaufman
     directs for the first time.  That should make for a
     fascinating film, but somehow it does not.  A
     community director wins a grant and stages a play of
     his own life including the staging of the play in an
     infinite regression.  This makes the film interesting
     in concept but disappointing in execution.  And surreal
     touches added throughout that just do not add up to
     anything but a film more challenging than rewarding.
     A good cast cannot make this exercise engaging.
     Rating: 0 (-4 to +4) or 4/10

I have to be honest.  As much as I have liked and admired BEING
JOHN MALKOVICH, THE ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND, and even
parts--not all--of ADAPTATION I do not think Charlie Kaufman's new
film does much for me.  Kaufman is on his way to being a real name
brand in film writing.  But I have to say that whatever Kaufman was
trying to say with SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK, the message was just not
intercepted.

The first puzzle of this film is its title.  There is no
Synecdoche, New York.  Perhaps the title is a corruption of
Schenectady, where part of the action takes place.  But nothing is
ever explained.  A "synecdoche" is a figure of speech, as I discuss
at the end of this review.  Philip Seymour Hoffman plays Caden
Cotard, a director of local community theater.  Through casting
necessity or artistic design he has a young man playing Willie
Loman.  The production has dubious success.  Meanwhile his wife
(played by Catherine Keener), a successful artist, is taking their
daughter to visit Germany.  But secretly she is planning to dump
Caden and just not to come back.  Meanwhile Caden wins a MacArthur
"Genius" Grant and stages a play of his own life.  He rents a big
open space warehouse in New York City and inside makes his own
replica of New York City.  There he stages the story of his life
including the staging of the play itself.  So real people are
mixing actors playing themselves or actors playing the people
around them.  Then when real people interact with actors in the
play new actors must be added to the play to dramatize those
interactions.

The confusion increases exponentially as players play players in
the play.  The production drags on and on for years without ever
opening to an audience.  Yes, there is surrealism going on, but
Kafka, wherever he is, has nothing to worry about.  The complexity
increases more like the Marx Brothers' stateroom scene, but not
nearly so amusingly.  And if all this is not strange enough Kaufman
throws in a burning house that like the Burning Bush in the Bible
burns but is not consumed.  One of the characters lives in the
house oblivious to the unusual nature of the building.  There is
also some strange sh-t going on with strange sh-t.  And at least
once there is something creepy with his peepee.  Delightful.  If
there is such a thing as organized surrealism, this is not it.
There is no obvious connection between the plays being staged and
the tutti-frutti human waste.  They are just there.

Kaufman has assembled a very good cast with Samantha Morton,
Michelle Williams, Emily Watson, Dianne Wiest, Tom Noonan, Hope
Davis, and Jennifer Jason Leigh.  But in so surreal and obscure a
story the actors cannot have been inspired since it is not clear
even what their performances meant.  It is difficult to contribute
to a film that does not know what it is doing.

Something clever could come out of the symmetries of the situation,
but it never really does.  When the film finally ended one woman
 from he audience came over to me and asked if I understood it.  I
said no and that while I like to come into a film not knowing what
it is about, I hate leaving a film that same way.

Somebody must be getting something from this film because it is
getting some very positive (and a few very negative) reviews.  But
SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK seems like a long drawn out shaggy dog story
with no punch line.  It is more an interesting idea for a film than
an interesting film.  I rate it a 0 on the -4 to +4 scale or 4/10.

(When I asked for my wife's hand in marriage I really wanted to get
the whole woman.  A "synecdoche" is a figure of speech in which the
part is used to represent the whole.  I suppose I could read into
the film that the play being produced somehow represents the whole
life.  It seems to me what we are seeing is less like a synecdoche
than like those magazine covers that show someone holding that very
magazine whose cover shows someone holding that magazine, etc.
There is also probably such a thing as a false-synecdoche where the
part is not actually part of the whole.  I would explain that in
detail but now I have to get my tail out of here.)

Film Credits: <http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0383028/>


					Mark R. Leeper
					mleeper at optonline.net
					Copyright 2008 Mark R. Leeper