Review: Synecdoche, New York (2008)

[Steve Rhodes]

SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 2008 Steve Rhodes

RATING (0 TO ****):  **

"Is everything okay?" one character asks another character late in 
SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK, one of the worst film titles of the year.  The answer 
he gets is the trite and semi-nonsensical response that "Everything is 
everything."  This labyrinth of a film is constructed recursively with 
characters playing other characters ad infinitum, ad nauseam.  The identity 
of the characters becomes a baffling mystery by the time these lines are 
spoken.  The film's final explanation of its meaning and probably its 
description of life in general is that "Everyone is everyone."  You might 
want to write than down.
A relentlessly morose movie, it is written by Charlie Kaufman (ETERNAL 
SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND), who makes his inauspicious directorial 
debut.  The movie is about a theatrical director named Caden Cotard (Philip 
Seymour Hoffman), who is busy constructing a play as big as life itself. 
Some of the characters in his play play Caden and some play characters who 
play characters playing Caden.

In this play within the movie -- whose proposed but rejected title is 
"Unknown, unkissed and lost" -- Claire Keen (Michelle Williams), one of 
Caden's mistresses in real-life, plays Hazel (Samantha Morton), another one 
of his mistresses.  Later, another actress plays the actress who plays 
Claire playing Hazel.  I know what you're thinking ("Zzzzzzz"), and you'd be 
right.  Starting off with a hazy but somewhat discernable dividing line 
between the real world and fantasy world, the movie quickly dissolves into 
one in which nothing -- apparently -- is supposed to be taken as real.  But 
that is only a guess.  The movie is an enigma not particularly worth 
solving.

At first this ode to the hypochondriac Caden, who suffers greatly from a 
wide host of non-existent illnesses, is actually kind of fascinating and 
sometimes funny.  But by the time the first act is over, the movie has 
abandoned its mild moments of mirth in favor of a didactically sober tone, 
like an angst-filled Woody Allen comedy with the jokes taken out.

Seen in small doses, the first part of the movie isn't bad.  It's definitely 
worth a laugh or two, even if the characters are so bizarrely and 
unrealistically drawn that it's downright impossible to care much about any 
of them.

There are lines here and there which are such mind-numbing gibberish that 
they are kind of fun rolling around in your brain.  Perhaps the best of 
these thought twisters is, "Knowing that you don't know is the first and 
most essential step in knowing." With dialog full of tautologies 
masquerading as deeply insightful messages, the movie does have its fleeting 
pleasures.  It isn't worth the price of admission or worth the time to watch 
it all, but, when it comes on TV, it's worth seeing a few minutes for free. 
In this case, less is more.  Or more precisely, more is just more of the 
same.

SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK runs 2:04. It is rated R for "language and some sexual 
content/nudity" and would be acceptable for teenagers.

The film opens nationwide in the United States on Friday, November 7, 2008. 
In the Silicon Valley, it will be showing at the Camera Cinemas.

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