When I saw the trailer for Synecdoche New York I was interested, intrigued and excited. A few hours later, after seeing the film itself, I left the cinema not just disappointed after what seemed like several hours of slow-moving, uninspiring, uninteresting, boring viewing; I was actually annoyed. Annoyed at the money and time I had parted with to sit through such an ultimately pointless experience.
The concept behind this film is a grand and exciting one. Theatre director, Caden Cotard, attempts to recreate the world he lives in with a vast cast of actors in a hopeless struggle to make sense of the misfortunes in his life and analyse his own inadequacies. With such a great inspiration and a stellar cast you would think Kaufman would have to try very hard to go wrong, but somewhere along the way he does.
In Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind and Being John Malkovich Kaufman showed a great skill for combining strange plots with creative casting and a quirky comic edge to create profound and moving films riddled with symbolism. It is because of these films that his brand of surrealism has become popular and very successful. Synecdoche New York should and could have featured alongside these works as triumphs of the avant-garde. It does not. Kaufman seemed to spend so much energy applying surrealist quirks to the plot that he neglected the fundamental aspects of his film. I never connected with the protagonist or cared enough about his tragically unhappy life to find his story interesting or moving.
Had this film lived up to its promising roots I would have spent my time longing for Caden to find some sort of happy conclusion to his struggle. I would have felt sympathy and sorrow when he finally dies. As it was I spent my time longing for any conclusion so I could leave. I felt pity and in the end I was relieved when he died.
This may have been forgivable had the message behind the film said something innovative and original. Instead the message behind this waste of time of a motion picture was not to waste your precious life analysing your misfortunes. I wasted two hours of my life watching a highly analytical film effectively telling me not to waste my time because analysis is fruitless! Frankly that message is pointless, hypocritical and uninspired. I may as well have painted "carpe diem" on a wall and watched it dry.
Moreover, having decided to pass on this unhelpful message, Kaufman's incessant tangents of unrelated surrealism were more distracting and confusing than quirky or interesting. Where there was symbolism to be found I was usually so uninterested that it only served to detract from the core meaning of the film.
Maybe I have missed the point or lacked the patience to fully appreciate this film. I have asked myself this several times since seeing it, especially since so many other reviewers seemed to enjoy and admire Kaufman's creation. But no matter how much I reconsider the film I always come to the same conclusion: I wish it had been better. I wish I still had my money. I wish I could get those two hours back.
My advice: do not watch Synecdoche New York. Certainly do not pay to watch it. And at all costs avoid trying to pronounce the word Synecdoche!
The concept behind this film is a grand and exciting one. Theatre director, Caden Cotard, attempts to recreate the world he lives in with a vast cast of actors in a hopeless struggle to make sense of the misfortunes in his life and analyse his own inadequacies. With such a great inspiration and a stellar cast you would think Kaufman would have to try very hard to go wrong, but somewhere along the way he does.
In Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind and Being John Malkovich Kaufman showed a great skill for combining strange plots with creative casting and a quirky comic edge to create profound and moving films riddled with symbolism. It is because of these films that his brand of surrealism has become popular and very successful. Synecdoche New York should and could have featured alongside these works as triumphs of the avant-garde. It does not. Kaufman seemed to spend so much energy applying surrealist quirks to the plot that he neglected the fundamental aspects of his film. I never connected with the protagonist or cared enough about his tragically unhappy life to find his story interesting or moving.
Had this film lived up to its promising roots I would have spent my time longing for Caden to find some sort of happy conclusion to his struggle. I would have felt sympathy and sorrow when he finally dies. As it was I spent my time longing for any conclusion so I could leave. I felt pity and in the end I was relieved when he died.
This may have been forgivable had the message behind the film said something innovative and original. Instead the message behind this waste of time of a motion picture was not to waste your precious life analysing your misfortunes. I wasted two hours of my life watching a highly analytical film effectively telling me not to waste my time because analysis is fruitless! Frankly that message is pointless, hypocritical and uninspired. I may as well have painted "carpe diem" on a wall and watched it dry.
Moreover, having decided to pass on this unhelpful message, Kaufman's incessant tangents of unrelated surrealism were more distracting and confusing than quirky or interesting. Where there was symbolism to be found I was usually so uninterested that it only served to detract from the core meaning of the film.
Maybe I have missed the point or lacked the patience to fully appreciate this film. I have asked myself this several times since seeing it, especially since so many other reviewers seemed to enjoy and admire Kaufman's creation. But no matter how much I reconsider the film I always come to the same conclusion: I wish it had been better. I wish I still had my money. I wish I could get those two hours back.
My advice: do not watch Synecdoche New York. Certainly do not pay to watch it. And at all costs avoid trying to pronounce the word Synecdoche!