Synecdoche, New York: Movie, DVD Review (2009)

Written and directed by Charlie Kaufman, 124 minutes, rated R.

The new Charlie Kaufman movie, "Synecdoche, New York," is exactly the sort of movie Kaufman fans should expect, only with the weirdness ratio ramped up to such a massive extent, it might, at its midpoint, lose a few viewers along the way.

Kaufman is, of course, the mind behind "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," "Adaptation" and "Being John Malkovich," all sketchy, admirably ambitious films that stood outside the mainstream and created their own insular worlds.

"Synecdoche" is no exception--it exists within its own universe. Since this is Kaufman's first shot at being a director and he’s working from his own script, the movie offers audiences a more complete picture of what's going on inside the man’s head. There is genius in there--and self-indulgence and clutter--and also so many rooms, one has to wonder while watching this movie which room he emerged from each day before he sat down to direct.

As for the movie, it would be great to tell you what it’s about, but it also would be a mistake for anyone to suggest that they'll know with certainty. They won’t. The movie is so abstract, it works by evasion, so much so that it ultimately leaves audiences only with questions about what is transpiring and then, at the end, what all of it meant.

Here is a movie about double-talk and guessing games fueled by a nonlinear structure and rattled storyline that shakes it so far off track, you either watch in appreciation for the risks Kaufman takes, or with frustration for not being able to fully piece together the narrative. Since the film is about one man's fractured internal life, the difficulty some will have in doing so likely is the point. Still, the movie is polarizing. Some will love it, others will hate it.

The first half sets the stage for the strangeness that’s to come. In it, we view the crumbling relationship between two artists--Caden (Philip Seymour Hoffman), a local theater director in Schenectady, NY, and his wife Adele (Catherine Kenner,), an intense painter of microscopic portraits. In order to view her work, one needs illuminated magnifying glasses, which, it should be said, are not needed when it comes to viewing the dysfunction looming large at the core of their marriage. Adele, after all, recently admitted to their marriage counselor (Hope Davis) that she has fantasized that Caden would die so she could start over again.

This hardly is what a spouse wants to hear--certainly not Caden, who at this point begins his gradual collapse. Health issues strike--a fungus grows on his body, he has seizers, there are issues with his heart, eyes and brain. Adele leaves for Berlin without him to show her work. In doing so, she takes their 4-year-old daughter with her and becomes a major success abroad, all while leaving Caden in the cold grasp of loneliness.

To compensate, he begins a major new play that will consume the rest of his life. In this way, the movie recalls Federico Fellini’s “8 1/2,” but it’s even more surreal, with an increasingly disillusioned and aging Caden meeting a host of characters along the way. Kaufman has assembled a terrific supporting cast--Emily Watson, Samantha Morton, Michelle Williams, Dianne Wiest, Tom Noonan among them--all of whom match Hoffman in delivering and sustaining such nuanced, off-beat performances, they keep your interest in a movie that leans hard on them to carry you through.

Grade: B

View the trailer here: