Nothing is simple for Charlie Kaufman. His films are worlds where, quite literally, anything can, and often does. The anxiety of the creative process has a name and face. The path of human emotion is just another beckoning rabbit hole. You don’t just feel heartbreak- you live it. But with a breadth of work that includes the Oscar-nominated screenplays for “Being John Malkovich” and “Adaptation,” and the Oscar winning “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” would you really want it any other way?
Whether championed as the current reigning geek king of surrealism or ridiculed for writing scripts almost too smart for their own good, most can agree on one fact about Kaufman: the guy knows weird. And after seeing his latest penned film “Synecdoche, NY,” his directorial debut, any resonating doubt of that will be erased entirely.
Finding ourselves in familiar territory, the film centers around playwright Caden Cotard, an anxiety ridden Phillip Seymour Hoffman. Awkwardly drudging through mediocrity as a director for the Schenectady Theater, Caden is miserable at work and quietly loathed at home by his wife Adele (a brutally irreverent Catherine Keener). Despite his “normal life,” with a steady job and loving family, he can’t shake feeling ignored. Whether seeking creative recognition through his production of “Death of a Salesman,” with his groundbreaking decision to cast a 20-something for elderly Willy Loman, or struggling to act the part of husband to Adele and father to their daughter Olive, Caden can hardly fill any role himself.
It doesn’t take long before everything is falling apart. As Caden begins to experience a hypochondriac’s wet dream, discovering a myriad of foreign bumps, rashes and “possibly” life-threatening ailments, Adele’s career as a miniature painter (not a painter of miniatures, but fingernail-sized paintings) takes off. By the time Adele takes Olive for an extended tour of her gallery openings in Europe, Caden is disintegrating.
His productions leave him empty. The unrequited love at work for the box office girl Hazel (a show-stealing Samantha Morton) remains unrequited. And his therapist (Hope Davis) cares more about peddling her self-help books than hearing him cower like a kicked mutt.
Then something big happens. The career-defining idea he’s been waiting for his entire life grasps him by the throat: crafting a play in a life-size replica of New York City in a Brooklyn warehouse with everyday people as its subjects. “No one is an extra,” muses Caden, “everyone has got their own story.” As the project continues to grow in scope and complexity, his own brilliant monster starts to swallow him and the audience whole.
In the past Kaufman’s films have always flirted with existentialist themes and relished in blurring the line of reality, but in “Synecdoche, NY” that line never even exists. Time folds into itself. Fiction is set on fire. One man’s struggle is everyone’s burden. It’s a movie so entrenched in its own aspirations, many may fight to breathe.
But if you’re brave enough to weather the ride, the reward is yours. Kaufman’s first attempt as director is his most ambitious film yet. And while it may stutter at times, and run about 10-minutes too long, it is truly remarkable.
Hoffman as the tortured Caden is a living metaphor for the insurmountable fear of failure haunting any artist. He’s portrayed with the same soul-bearing grit that keeps putting Hoffman on the marquee. And what’s more, Kaufman proves he knows how to treat his characters. Rather than become entirely consumed with the gargantuan philosophical weight of the film, Caden is just as much an agonized artist as he is a pompous comic foible.
Although, as impressive a performance as Hoffman gives, the real dramatic wonders here are the women in Caden’s life. Samantha Morton (“Control,” “Mister Lonely”) is spine-shatteringly true in her portrayal of Caden’s love Hazel. She lends the perfect amount of defeat and tenderness to a role easily squandered on any other actress. Michelle Williams is both aggravating and hilarious as Caden’s second wife, the bubbly budding actress Claire.
There is so much exploding within the world of “Synecdoche, NY” this review can hardly even hope to scale it down for mass consumption. And while Kaufman runs into a similar problem at points in his film, there is nothing small about this movie, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.