Synecdoche, New York

I wanted to like Synecdoche, New York. I think highly of Charlie Kaufman and I was looking forward to being told a recursive, mind-bending, crazy-fascinating story. What I got instead was a boring, boring, boring movie in which my confusion eventually turned into frustration and then anger.

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In order to write an honest review I decided not to walk out, but about a dozen people did walk out of the showing I attended.

Here’s a summary: A man named Caden is a theater director.  He has a wife and daughter.  For the first fifteen minutes of the movie they discuss the color of his daughter’s poop.  This theme is never revisited. Caden directs a play and then his wife leaves him.  A younger woman decides she wants to sleep with Caden for no discernible reason.  Caden goes to see a magic therapist who gives him a book which contains predictions.  The predictions are not explained and are not relevant.  Caden discovers that he is unable to salivate or swallow, but this does not relate to anything.  He remarries and has another daughter.  The woman who wants to sleep with him decides to buy a house that is literally on fire. His first daughter gets tattoos.  He starts crying.  People age at different rates.  Someone has a funeral.  There is a shot of a blimp.  A man tells him that he has been stalking him for twenty years, but doesn’t mention why and no one seems to care.  Later the man commits suicide, but it is not clear why.  The woman who bought the burning house marries a man who has been living in the basement all along, but he is not an important character.  Caden is told that his mother has died.  This is the first and last time we hear about his mother. He sees his therapist on an airplane and she shows him her leg for no reason.  Caden tells some fellow to build something inside a warehouse.  Some woman you’ve never seen before asks him to sleep with her and he cries.  There is a death scene with a woman who is covered in tattoos and accuses him of being a homosexual.  She may or may not be his daughter and homosexuality never comes up again.  Caden sits on a couch and talks meaninglessly to a woman who may have appeared earlier in the movie and then he dies.

All of the above takes two hours to relate, but it feels like twenty.

I didn’t actually give up on the movie until about 45 minutes in.  I believed in it — I kept looking for clues and paying close attention so that I wouldn’t miss a twist.  Is he an actor playing himself?  Does the book of predictions relate to the warehouse in some way?  Is there some reason why that girl is flirting with him?  And so on.  Eventually, however, I realized that there are no clues and there is nothing to gain from paying attention.  It’s just a boring, meaningless sequence of events delivered in a self-important style.

A noteworthy aspect of this movie is that Caden is an annoying loser.

Synecdoche, New York is boring.

You don’t for a minute believe that any of those women want to sleep with him. He’s a pudgy middle-aged guy with an atrocious haircut who cries a lot and has a dour attitude toward life. He’s a bit socially awkward and he has a skin condition that causes pustules to grow on his face.  In fact, he is beset by physical ailments.  And did I mention that he cries a lot?  Why do we want to watch this fellow?  For a movie this highly anticipated it is incredible that it is never even able to pass the “why do we care?” test.  You’re supposed to feel sorry for Caden when his wife leaves him, but you understand. In fact, you want to walk out yourself.

Here’s the “trick” of the movie.  Caden is trying to re-create New York City inside a warehouse in New York City.  But to do this faithfully he has to re-create the warehouse itself inside the city he is creating inside the warehouse, and then recreate another city inside… well, you get the idea. I found this idea amusing when I was 12.  And also note this: 75% of the movie seems to have nothing to do with the whole warehouse convolution.

So that’s it.  If you want to be confused and frustrated and witness a lot of overwrought emotional talks that you can’t place in context, go for it.  And if you really want to figure it out I recommend watching it three or four times.  I doubt, however, that you’ll be able to bear it.

It’s just boring.