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Film-O-Pinions: Synecdoche, NY
Wow. Tremendous. Bring your thinking caps and leave your stupid friends at home (unless your watching it at home, in which case tell them to leave). Phillip Seymour Hoffman is a crazy playwright tortured genius-type named Caden, who ignores/mentally fucks his wife and daughter. It’s weird but OK because he’s a good play director. His first show (in the film) is a hit and consequently all the women in the cast want to fuck him. Being a true theatre man, he is uncomfortable with that (but then again there isn’t much that doesn’t discomfort’s him). This sexual confusion leads him to his next, and greatest, production..A meticulous, full-scale rendition of his life and Everything in it!
Writer/director Charlie Kauffman works overtime here. For those who don’t know, he made/wrote Adaptation and Being John Malkovich and specializes in Mindfuck plots with thick hearts. This film makes sweet love to your mind as opposed to just fucking it. Watching Hoffman play out all the issues in life on stage is baffling and little bit enviable. He simultaineously addresses his life-long mistakes, and ignores them. It’s Cerebral and sensual, witty and realistic, and utterly absurd. For example, late in the film, we actually watch dude sleep with a woman (Emily Morton) who is playing a woman he tried to fuck years earlier (Samantha Morton). There’s tons of great stuff like that in this film. It’s a Must see for any art nerds, film buffs, anyone in an existensial crisis, or people who like good novels.
The music is great, the performances are excellent (Samantha Morton’s real good), great pacing, great lines (especially the last), nice shots, etc. I feel alot smarter right now having seen it and I will see it again.
Definately see it.
