Whoah. Okaaaaaaay. I think we suspected all along that Charlie
Kaufman—like most undisputed geniuses—has problems, but,
um, yo. Dude has PAH-ROB-A-LEMS. Synecdoche, New
York—Kaufman’s directorial debut (i.e., the first of his
scripts without an outside hand for checks and balances)—is a
ponderous, inky cloud of neurosis and misery. It’s the doldrums; it’s a
bummer; it’s a sprawling, tentacled, squishy squid thing, too
big to look at all at once. It’s the unfiltered contents of Charlie
Kaufman’s brain. It is no fun at all.

Philip Seymour Hoffman is Caden Cotard, a successful playwright
(hey, good job, man!!) with an adorable daughter and a nice house and
an interesting wife (who, admittedly, doesn’t love him anymore, but is
played by Catherine Keener, so that’s a plus) and all of those tangible
and intangible things that—I know, I know (yaaaawn)—don’t
technically “buy” happiness, but certainly contribute to it.
Unless you’re one of those people who is never happy, because
love is a lie, and we are nothing but sad, lonely beasts,
wasting our existence on a slow, solitary, pointless slide into death.
Caden is one of those people.

Or, to put it another way, GAAHHHHHH.

There is no joy in Synecdoche, New York—none of the
refracted brightness that hovers around the corners of Eternal
Sunshine or the gleeful absurdity of Being John Malkovich or
the funny, fuck-it cynicism of Adaptation. It’s possible that
the sheer accumulation of melancholy that Caden drags behind him
and unfurls before him is intended to be funny, in a dark, ridiculous,
head-shaking kind of way. But it’s not. It’s just depressing.

The whole thing starts out innocuously enough. Caden putters around
the house, obsessing about health—avian flu, expired milk,
green poop, arthritis, head wounds—and having almost-funny
conversations over the morning paper (“Harold Pinter died.” “Well, he
was old.” “Oh, no. He won the Nobel Prize”). Soon, his marriage begins
to disintegrate (“Can I say something awful? I’ve fantasized about
Caden dying”), along with his body (“What’s wrong with your face,
daddy?” “Um, it’s pustules”).

Then everything goes bonkers. Caden wins a MacArthur grant (maybe),
his wife leaves him (maybe), he has another baby (maybe), he’s gay
(super maybe), he is sometimes in Berlin (maaaaybe!), time becomes
stretchy, and he begins construction on the masterpiece that will
occupy the rest of his long, dismal life (um, maybe): a piece of
real, true, honest theater; theater as a facsimile of real life,
but a manufactured real life. Real life directed by Caden. It’s
huge and crazy and would be magnificent if you could sit through it
enough times to make sense of the whole thing. But who wants to do
that? recommended

Lindy West was born an unremarkable female baby in Seattle, Washington. The former Stranger writer covered movies, movie stars, exclamation points, lady stuff, large frightening fish, and much, much more....

11 replies on “Concessions”

  3. I’m not sure if I liked it, loved it, disliked it, or hated it. I guess the one thing that’s on my mind right now is this: Kaufman knows how to write a great movie. He knows how to make a great movie. This is a great movie. It’s great because regardless of whether or not I end up liking or disliking it, it will be on my mind for a very long time. It’s burned in my head. It’s movies like Synecdoche that make you wonder why you even bother watching movies like Eagle Eye or whatever popcorn/Blockbuster flick is out. All you’re doing is wasting your time. After a week you won’t even remember you watched it until someone asks if you’ve seen anything recently. It’s movies like Synecdoche that make you start a conversation about a movie, one that will last longer than “man that movie was a piece of shit” or “you know, I just really wanted to lose two hours of my life this weekend.”

    Also, read: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotard_delusion]

  4. “It’s huge and crazy and would be magnificent if you could sit through it enough times to make sense of the whole thing. But who wants to do that?”

    Kinda like this column!

  5. What is with all the Lindy West hating lately? It’s not even clever hatred. It’s really just the same comment over and over again, and it sounds like the same person over and over again. I ought to make a record of my findings.

  7. Went to see this movie twice today, and, frankly, I don’t see how any honest critic could possibly write a review after one viewing. There’s A LOT in there, and certainly virtually endless fodder for discussion. I would encourage people to keep an open mind, not worry about trying to decipher what the movie “means”, go with a friend or two to see this movie, and make time to talk about various elements of the movie afterward.

  8. Um, that movie was BRILLIANT. Does everything need a palatable candy coating to be worthwhile?

    Everything about it was fucking magnificent. And yeah, I left feeling that my soul had been scrubbed down with steel wool and gin. It was devastating. I’m still not sure I’m ok.

    Does art have to be “fun” to be good, just cuz they sell popcorn and soda in the lobby? I’d rather be affected. Moved. Changed. If I want to have fun, I can do whippets and watch Across the Universe again. . . which I might very well need to do in order to recover from this genius piece of filmmaking.

  9. Gee thanks for the link to the review that starts off by telling you the ending of the movie!!!!!… at least Lindy knows to have spoiler warnings! Stop questioning her journalism and write your own.

  10. And there IS joy in it. But we have to work for it.

    Even if we understand every bit of darkness in the movie, even if we can identify with parts of it way more than we’d like to. . . most of us get to walk away knowing that we aren’t him. That we can eventually retrieve our sanity after coping with loss, that there are people who love us and keep on loving us, that we complete at least some of our projects, and that sometimes we squeeze a bit of meaning out of the ways we spend our time.

    If the film only mirrors the worst in life, and you can see all of the beautiful stuff in your life that it misses, then the film has shown you the beautiful stuff in a very personal way that it could never have done with a happy ending.

  11. I dunno, I don’t think Lindy’s review is all that bad. I mean, she kind of doesn’t give it it’s due as being worthwhile for repeat viewing, but I think she does give the warning that a lot of potential viewers would probably want to have. I don’t think anyone with the fortitude to enjoy this movie would be serious dissuaded by this review.

    Plus, all the overblown intense commentary aside… I think she covers a lot with her different flavors of maybe, and for a mini-review it does a lot.

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