Synecdoche, New York (Charlie Kaufman, 2008)

[knives]

Outside of the critics I've never agreed with the negative reviews have at least suggested watching the movie so I probably will. Actually the negative reviews have been better endorsements to me since I love overly long depressing mindscrews.

[Grand Illusion]

The negative reviews don't scare me away. The one-off reference to 8 1/2 does though. I can't stand that film.

Oh well, I'll probably see this over the weekend.

[Andre Jurieu]

Wait till you see the film, some people around here are going to think this is that bad.

Armond is actually right on the money on this and Changeling.

I actually don't agree with White or Reed on this one. Having said that, I do think chaddoli is right is saying that the reception to this film is not going to be sunshine, lollipops, and rainbows, so I wouldn't really start attacking White or Reed on this particular film (let the record show that I think both of them are douche-bags). Actually, I would go so far as to speculate that most of the people who watch this movie, including most of the people on this forum will hate this movie.

[johnny truant]

i mean i saw this sunday night at the CIFF and its still been in my mind ever since the last line.
Kaufmans Q&A was illuminating
the Vice interview is perfect because the film is about failure and dying and not being able to create anything, its a terrifying movie and the end is devastating
i have never been in a theater and heard that much applause
cannot wait to see it again

[Grand Illusion]

This is a movie with serious Dada issues.

... oh god, I'm so clever. Anyway, I love me some relentlessly grim existentialism. I enjoyed the concept of following this man from mid-life to old age more than I did the execution.

Art as life as art imitating lifeartlife has been done since we all drank the Blood of a Poet with similar bizarreness, so I found that aspect less interesting.

Part of the problem, for me, is that the lack of a strict narrative spine makes it easy to get bored as the film meanders. Kaufman's solution is his humor, often found in the surrealist moments that would otherwise defy reality. Unfortunately, his invocation of the strange often works to his detriment.

I will only name one example.

SpoilerShow

Caden (Hoffman) is visiting his daughter Olive, who has been taken away and raised in Germany. As she lies on her deathbed, she now only speaks German. Caden and Olive have to communicate through translation headsets, since they don't even speak the same language (SYMBOLISM!). The scene is an oddity though.

It plays out in subtitles. The actress is a notably unattractive woman, who looks nothing like the younger actress who played Olive earlier, and she plays the scene like high melodrama. Kaufman allows Hoffman to show emotion and has the scene crescendo into a beautiful image--one of Olive's leaf tattoos falls off and withers. What could have been touching, instead gets muddled in between tragedy and comedy. Some in the audience laugh. Some try to get lost in the moment. Instead, it's the moment that gets lost.

Other sequences work much better, especially the ones with Caden and Hazel (Samantha Morton). Samantha Morton and Michelle Williams are the MVPs here, and both put in subtle, top-notch performances.

Overall, I did like the film, and it's certainly more interesting than 97% of the theatrical releases out there. It's hard to say the film is "flawed." It doesn't adhere to a specific structure and everything on the screen is meant to be there, due to the intensely personal vision of its director.

I'm glad I saw it. I enjoyed it. But I don't think I'd go back for seconds.

[Dylan]

I thought this was an insufferable piece of idiotic, pointless randominity and obvious, dull, messy, annoying existentialism. I kept an open mind for the first half-hour, but the story machinery collapses once he marries Michelle Williams, rots once he sees his daughter again, and descends into a deathly, infuriatingly repetitive bore for the final hour. I felt embarrassed sitting in the theater. The only legitimately good thing about this film is Jon Brion’s lovely end credits song (his score is rather undistinguished, however, and I say that as a fan). Emily Watson is pretty good, but becomes completely lost, almost swallowed by the end. Hoffman does what he can, but the direction is so breathtakingly awkward that he ends up looking like he’s constanty on the verge of sweating and shaking to death (which he's not bad at, I'll admit).

Kaufman’s other screenplays are fine (if more-than reasonably overrated, critically and publically), but this is a disaster. I honestly couldn't get out of the theater quickly enough.

[Haggai]

Thumbs down from me on this one. I generally like Kaufman, and Eternal Sunshine is one of my recent favorites, but this film just didn't work at all. Long, boring, repetitive...all of the above. I guess there is some direct lineage with 8 1/2 and All That Jazz, but very much unlike those two mostly joyous films (I guess ATJ is kind of a downer in some ways, but I never feel that way watching it), this one is drab and almost never any fun. Although the actors do a good job, as others have said in this thread.

I think the one joke that really worked for me was when they were rehearsing the play late in the film and Hoffman hands Williams a note saying "you think you might be gay"...LOL. Nice little take on self-absorbed directors there, which unfortunately doesn't represent what most of the rest of the film puts across.

[exte]

A lot of people are going to commit suicide because of this film. I found it that depressing.

[LQ]

Dylan, you couldn't have put it better. It was mildly interesting (if not altogether original) for say, 20 minutes. But then it turned into one of the most colossal messes I've ever witnessed. I willfully closed my eyes on a few occasions and tried to sleep through the rest of the duration, to no avail. Holy shit, it was bad. I never want to think about fucking Synecdoche ever, ever again.

[mfunk9786]

There are films that you want to like, so you hold back from dismissing them outright because you think there might be something you're missing.

This is the opposite for me. I feel like should be loathing this film today, but it's dancing around in my mind and forcing me to consider its many flourishes of hilarity, sadness and brilliance. It certainly isn't a film like Adaptation that makes you go "Ah!" as it's coming together - it never really does come together. But I couldn't ever discourage someone from seeing it, because it seems that a lot of different people are reacting in a lot of different ways to it.

I can say, meaning no offense to Kaufman, I wish Jonze had directed it, simply because he could have reigned in some of the pork in the screenplay and made it feel a lot more tolerable to those who felt it was simply too much.

[AWA]

I must say - as someone who is still anticipating the release of this film here and has been for a while... the general consensus of this board usually means a lot more to me than the general consensus of any given critic.... but, oddly enough, the polarization of the critics' opinions on this film is reflected here as well, where by people hate the hell out of this or absolutely love it. Which, if you ask me, is a very good sign. It makes me want to see this even more. Saw the trailer for it before "RockNRolla" (which was crap, but I was on a date and had to see it)... looks terrific in the theatre.

[rs98762001]

I can say, meaning no offense to Kaufman, I wish Jonze had directed it, simply because he could have reigned in some of the pork in the screenplay and made it feel a lot more tolerable to those who felt it was simply too much.

Actually, the excessiveness of Kaufman's ambition and execution is exactly why this movie is so fascinating to its adherents, and it tends to improve and sort itself out on a second viewing (or even simply in the mind). To my mind, it's significantly better and more interesting than Adaptation.

[knives]

I thought it was real good if cliche and predictable in the genre. Hoffman and Morton really hold the thing together. I'd give it 10/10 if not for the fact it felt like an Eraserhead rehash with Allen at the helm.

[sevenarts]

Here's my review. It's a sprawling mess, but it's brimming with ideas and genuine emotion (if especially dark emotions for the most part), and its confused and confusing structure is intimately connected with what it has to say. It's a tough movie, and I certainly wouldn't dispute any of the people who say they hate it, because I see all the same things they're complaining about. But for me it works.

[Barmy]

The 11th best film of the year. It is rivetting for 90 minutes then falls apart, but that's ok. Jill Clayburgh needed to be in this. The audience I was with loathed it and that actually enhanced the experience. Lotsa laughing AT the WTFness. I am not a huge fan of Hoffman, Sammy Morton or Michelle Dawson-Creek, but Hoff was good, Morton is tolerable for the first time ever and Michelle actually is an actress--who knew? Best of all, it is nice too look at--that was by far the biggest surprise. Also, I slept through a good 20 minutes here and there and I'm sure that helped. But it shows genuine egomaniacal ambition somehow without, in my view, being pretentious--very rare these days.

[tavernier]

I slept through a good 20 minutes here and there and I'm sure that helped.

The pull quote of the year.

[LQ]

I also slept a good 20 minutes here and there, but it just made me hate it more because it wasn't over yet whenever I cracked my eyelids open.

[Mr Sausage]

I also slept a good 20 minutes here and there, but it just made me hate it more because it wasn't over yet whenever I cracked my eyelids open.

It would have been over much quicker if you'd left.

[LQ]

Couldn't. My companion was spellbound.

[mfunk9786]

I liked it enough to want to see it to its completion. I owe Kaufman that much after loving all of his previous work. And I still walked out liking more than I disliked. I still think of that burning house and chuckle.

[pianocrash]

I don't really think I can accurately count this as even being a movie-going experience, even as I did feel embarrassed for everyone else in the theater for holding a similarly befuddled look the whole time. I admit that I was clamoring for a life preserver at first, but eventually I just gave in and let the movie take me where it wanted, i.e. the less I tried to break it down during, the better off I became (and consequently, I felt more like a witness than a viewer by the very end). As most films approach their material in such a standard and blasé way that we become accustomed to the shorthand of the medium so quickly, seeing Kaufman so assuredly present this story in such an imperfect and unflinching (and, yes, "messy") way was a revelation. It's a totally different language, set miles apart from his earlier scripts, and I think it requires a huge leap of faith to even try and appreciate, on any level.

[Svevan]

Is everyone here seeing this film in New York? BoxOfficeMojo says it opened on 9 screens in October and hasn't expanded since.

[Jeff]

Is everyone here seeing this film in New York? BoxOfficeMojo says it opened on 9 screens in October and hasn't expanded since.

BOM doesn't always post expansions. It's playing everywhere now, including the Regal Fox Tower Stadium 10 in Portland, if that's in your neck of the woods. I doubt it will go much wider than it is now.

[colinr0380]

A couple of articles trying to unravel the film from the Like Anna Karina's Sweater blog.

[Jeff]

A couple of articles trying to unravel the film from the Like Anna Karina's Sweater blog.

Thanks for that. The article discusses a few things I had been trying to wrap my head around. The film is ridiculously ambitious. It's a sprawling mess, but I liked it for reasons I can't really seem to articulate, and I definitely need to see it again. Love Jon Brion's "Little Person" over the end credits too.