Synecdoche, New York Review
by Steve Rhodes (steve DOT rhodes AT internetreviews DOT com)November 7th, 2008
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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