Synecdoche, New York Reviews and Ratings


  • jonnydaddy
    November 25, 2009
    jonnydaddy
    A must see movie! Very well acted and directed. But it is a very detailed movie just take it all in and find someone to play yourself.
  • filmguy450
    November 22, 2009
    filmguy450
    Never saw this last year, never had the chance. I know, I am behind. Having now seen it, and knowing that it polarized most people, they either hailed it as brilliant or condemn it as vain and pretentious. I understand both, but am squarely in the love camp. There is soo much goi...( read more)ng on, soo many characters in his life, the why he writes his play, the to scale replica of NYC, the real and non blending in, and the tattoo thing, ohh the tattoo thing. Hoffman is at his best, seemingly enjoying the chance to play such a prick, who doesn't understand life or get people.
  • ephremishac
    November 17, 2009
    ephremishac
    Fantastic and very deep . It is worth watching and great for meditation...
  • steakncheese
    November 17, 2009
    steakncheese
    Definitely going to be seen as pretentious and depressing by most, especially on the initial viewing, but there are some moving performances and a lot of heart. Kaufman has great vision and brings a brutally honest touch to his directorial debut. There is a lot in this movie that...( read more) is left open to your interpretation, or at least there are some things that will be completely missed by some.

    Some will see this as a brave and brilliant film, others as heavy handed and miserable. For me, it's a tough pill to swallow at times but there is still a great deal of reward for the right viewer.
  • spaulsson
    November 16, 2009
    spaulsson
    If you insist on understanding everything that happens in a movie you will call this pretentious crap, but if you find the world utterly confusing (like me) and is looking for atmospere, you will love it. It is stunningly beautiful both storywise and in the cinematography. Hoffma...( read more)n and the rest of the cast performs nothing less than outstanding. Charlie Kaufman did it with "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind", he did it with "Human Nature", and now he has done it again.
  • mattman1989
    November 13, 2009
    mattman1989
    "I will be dying and so will you, and so will everyone here. That's what I want to explore. We're all hurtling towards death, yet here we are for the moment, alive. Each of us knowing we're going to die, each of us secretly believing we won't."

    This film has recieved some very...( read more) mixed reviews and, after watching it, I can kind of see why. Personally, this film blew me away, but it's certainly not for everyone. Unlike many movies, this one doesn't set out to tell it's viewer what to think. Kaufman allows the viewer to draw their own conclusions and really connect with the movie. If you're looking for something 'arty' and thought provoking, then you'll love it. But it's not an easy watch. Ultimately it draws on the lonliness of life, struggling to understand your place and the desperate longing for something to come along and allow you to connect with the world. It drives across such a powerful, yet haunting message, that we spend our entire lives asking questions, looking for a meaning, right up until our very last breath. While it's outlook is pretty bleak, it's undeniably in touch with something, I think, everyone feels at some stage in their lives. If anything, it serves as a message that there's no one watching over you ready to help, you have to create your own destiny. Despite this, it's dark humour offers a few unexpected laughs. It takes some energy to watch this film but, for me, the final pay off made it all worth while. This film really is a work of art and has reaffirmed my faith in the fact that truely intelligent films can still be made. After all, it's quite a risk to throw millions of dollars at such a risky production. In this case, it more than payed off.
  • dbmp1971
    November 10, 2009
    dbmp1971
    Total mindfuck - in a good way.
  • ceWEBrity
    November 5, 2009
    ceWEBrity
    Synecdoche, New York is a piping hot load of art-house horse shit, masquerading as a million things but not really giving us any reason to be invested in any of them. At large the movie would seem to present itself as some metatheatrical look into art, life, and creation, through...( read more) the eyes of a Kaufman-esque (played with investment but no real stretching by Philip Seymour Hoffman) and brimming with humor utterly absurd enough to distort the fourth wall. That humor, along with the exaggerated musical cues, and the squarely unimaginative casting of Seymour Hoffman, and some really awful late-game passes at emotional string pulling, would seem to be Kaufman's devices to make the movie accessible to us. Whether that was his intention or not, or even if it was his intention to make them all deliriously bad, the movie is immediately and irreparably dishonest for trying to establish a connection through tried-and-true cliches. The fact that it knows that they are cliches does not change that; it's essentially looking a viewer in the eye and saying with a wink "hey, this is stuff that works on people in ~LESSER MOVIES~, so why shouldn't it work for you here too, heh heh". And maybe that helps some viewers to feel better about themselves, smarter perhaps, but here it looks like a movie's vain struggle to make itself seem unimpeachably intelligent and wholly focused and thoughtful. Far. Fucking. From it.

    And look, we all know that Kaufman plays around with narratives that break the fourth wall and the perceptions of reality and all that shit. We loved it in Being John Malkovich, we loved it in Eternal Sunshine, we loved it in Adaptation. Here I could only wonder what's given him the right to put together this narcissistic fantasia of the three, short of 20 million dollars' worth of masturbatory self-interest. I would never decry an auteur for pursuing his personal interests in the cinematic medium and then releasing it for others to indulge in, but it doesn't mean that I automatically have to enjoy or even appreciate the finished product. This plays like Kaufman's Greatest Hits, a movie self-referential in its self-reference and so on until it spirals out into some horrifying Escher pattern. Any third grader can do that. His only true aim in creating Synecdoche, New York was to encompass as many themes and tones and possible and then shield his condemning lack of focus with the umbrella of metafiction. Even the film's grandest conceit, a life-sized copy of New York inside a theater in New York, reflects this, and yet to what end? By the time Kaufman had exhausted his bag of tricks, I had checked out of this tiresome slog, taking nothing from the film except a newfound disdain for these supposedly "clever" narratives. I'm scared to ever watch Adaptation again.

    Essentially, Synecdoche says "fuck you I do what I want" to its befuddled audience, and in concept I do admire that temerity. If one thing can be said for the film, it's that it is ambitious. Expecting a viewer to accept, ruminate on, and defend every single aspect of a film where not even the film is interested in defending them just smacks of arrogance to me. The movie is stiflingly arrogant and enamored with itself, and for all the emotional payloads and philosophical mumblings about life it may have tried to put forth, I simply couldn't have cared about any of them.
  • LisaMJ
    November 2, 2009
    LisaMJ
    Totally different and confusing. A really great movie.
  • g0y
    October 26, 2009
    g0y
    Not at all like Kaufman's previous efforts. The realism and surrealism cancel each other out and the concept is unimaginative. Where the hell was the comedy? Somewhere stuck between the emo bitching? Really hard to sit through, disappointing, and sleep-inducing. One of the most s...( read more)entimentalist-rubbish endings.
  • jasonsteele99
    October 20, 2009
    jasonsteele99
    Boring. Its constipated art. Forget about this film. Its a waste of time.
  • sorullo2
    October 19, 2009
    sorullo2
    Few films have made me feel as alive as this one.
  • gor41
    October 18, 2009
    gor41
    Achingly pretentious exercise in narrative games which requires supreme concentration to follow but does reward perseverance with a desolate performance from Hoffman at its heart.
  • closedmouth
    October 18, 2009
    closedmouth
    Well, that's it. That's the end. Kaufman has created and destroyed cinema. It's all over.
  • deano
    October 18, 2009
    deano
    The storyline becomes incresingly convoluted, warping into a kind of play-within-a-within-a-film. The action takes place in a New York City warehouse, which is designed to resemble a massive indoor replica of The Big Apple. Inside the warehouse is a smaller set of the warehouse.....( read more). and so on. Screenwriter-director Charlie Kaufman's film's themes are ambitious, but the film is at time incomprehensible, and far too long. This should be quite a bit strange when the time passes on the tale of one man, Philip Seymour Hoffman's Caden Cotard, and his struggle to under his place in the world from his family, several lovers and the warehouse.
  • ristrawn
    October 17, 2009
    ristrawn
    good & real about life's challenges - we all have them & need to manage them effectively... enjoy the fun times when you can because time goes by fast - 20 years flew by quickly... film was longer than it needed to be... Philip Seymour Hoffman was fantastic...
  • barbaragpires
    October 14, 2009
    barbaragpires
    um dos melhores roteiros sobre a vontade humana em tentar compreender e capturar a realidade, as situações, as pessoas e os sentimentos, para que possamos assim entendê-los por completos e não perdê-los mais.
    e é claro que uma pessoa que leva essa vontade ao extremo tem vários ti...( read more)pos de problemas, tanto em nível fisiológico como emocional e de funcionalidade social também.
    não existe essa possibilidade de compreensão plena da vida e é isso que charlie kaufman mostra sensivelmente e de maneira confusa e truncada (desconto por ser sua estreia na direção) nesse filme.
    é uma obra-prima necessária.
  • mdavidct
    October 14, 2009
    mdavidct
    pretentious movie like the fountain have themes of death, mind fuck etc. but this is not like David Lynch that make you follow it, Ok the act is good and some concepts but the director faill like Caden try to do so much and faill miserably a pretentious crap.

    also he needs Spike...( read more) Jonze or Michael Gondry to make the idea or scrip good.

    the 1 and a half star is for the acting.
  • dipa89
    October 13, 2009
    dipa89

  • Phonex
    October 11, 2009
    Phonex
    Annoying, disturbing, abandoning, burning, menstruating, depressing, dimming, theatral trash. Director is wasting his money and my time. He has being sick, tired, lonely and dying for 124 min. Do something else to enjoy life if art does not fit u. There is no point for torturing.
  • jboochard
    October 8, 2009
    jboochard
    HOLY FRIGGIN' CRAP! This is some super-pretentious arty stuff. I thought I had seen super-pretentious arty stuff before, but this... WOW! This wins. I have mixed feelings on this one. I loved it and hated it at the same time. I want to watch it again ASAP, but I also want t...( read more)o never see it again. Makes me think of something David Lynch would make. One of those movies where you have no idea what is going on in ways that you've never before not understood something.
  • evillincoln
    October 4, 2009
    evillincoln
    I just didn't like it that much, I can't believe I am going to use these words but it was just to arty and depressing.
  • allefra25
    October 4, 2009
    allefra25
    I saw this awhile ago, I just forgot to review it. I had higher expectations for this movie, since I really liked Being John Malkovich. However, I was supremely let down. Philip Seymour Hoffman was amazing, but I found this movie just to be one extremely confusing, depressing, ov...( read more)erly long affair. The set pieces were haunting, contributing to the sad mood of the film. The plot was very disjointed, and thus kind of hard to understand. I wish I could give this movie a higher rating, but honestly, I can't; I can't define this movie, I can't explain what it's even about, and just thinking about it makes me feel like Caden, Hoffman's protagonist: alone, unsure, and meaningless.
  • jasontmartin3
    October 4, 2009
    jasontmartin3
    if it has emily watson I will give it a try
  • columbiatch
    October 2, 2009
    columbiatch
    First of all, this is one fucking pretentious movie exploring some ideas that were much better executed in Rivette's films in less pretentious and grand fashion. Second, I prefer more immediate and subtle ways to express the profound ideas in life over Kaufman's bombastic, misera...( read more)blist approach which make these big contrived tragic gestures to illustrate the most obvious things like aging and mortality. It would at least make the film more credible if it doesn't vacillate between genuine empathy and self parody. Plus with exception to Hoffman character who's obviously a stand in for Kaufman, none of the characters come across as believable. This is pretty much saying again that the film is very heavyhanded in getting its points across. It doesn't help the aesthetics are totally bland with conventional shot-reverse-shots.
  • mrpopcorn
    October 2, 2009
    mrpopcorn
    "I breathe your name on every exhalation"

    A theater director struggles with his work, and the women in his life, as he attempts to create a life-size replica of New York inside a warehouse as part of his new play.

    REV
    ...( read more)IEW
    Synecdoche, New York is a firecracker display that sets the audience up for a grand epic of adventures then sputters its lovable way through over two hours of loosely connected views of life as we live it - through the eyes of an increasingly physically disabled director Caden Cotard (Philip Seymour Hoffman). Trying to summarize what the story is and does is always as risky task when it comes to Charlie Kaufman films and the audience for this work will be decidedly separated between the love it or hate it division.

    Kaufman manages to address so many issues (marriage, adultery, joblessness, that thin thread of sanity that keeps actors committed to impossibly complex problematic productions, etc) that keeping up with the nonlinear story line is challenging at best. But with a cast of characters as finely portrayed by actors such as Samantha Morton, Catherine Keener, Hope Davis, Michelle Williams, Jennifer Jason Leigh et al, the whole crazy film works wonders on the imagination. This is pure entertainment for the sake of entertainment and while Caden Cotard does represent Everyman searching for some semblance of meaning in a universe that makes little sense (except that death is inevitable!), it is the process more than the dialogue that makes this film such a pleasure to follow. Charlie Kaufman has done it again.
  • jcinpc69
    September 23, 2009
    jcinpc69
    This movie is beautifully done. Well crafted, but confusing. The story line flips back and forth from reality to memories. It is hard to follow and because of this it is a boring movie that drags without explanation.
    Do I recommend it. NO! Only if you are bored out of your mind a...( read more)nd it is snowing and you are snowed in and can't get out and you have seen everything in your library at least 100 times. Then yes go ahead and watch it.
  • anospi
    September 19, 2009
    anospi
    Sad, moving, thoughtful. Another impressive film from Kaufman, although very difficult to follow. Definitely requires a second viewing.
  • noahfence
    September 19, 2009
    noahfence
    genius, hilarious in places but depressing throughout. Epic Kaufman...
  • ZlatkoGR
    September 18, 2009
    ZlatkoGR
    Charlie Kaufman is brilliant. He writes about life, stripped of of any imagery. Of course it's weird and of course it's surreal and of course time is of no importance in his movies. Philip Seymour Hoffman plays superbly once again and this movie is so genuine and amazing, that it...( read more)'s ridiculous!
  • michaelcorleone
    September 16, 2009
    michaelcorleone
    Yes, this movie will impress open-minded viewers the first time they see it. It may even blow them away. However, I think this is one of the rare films that needs to be seen at least twice in order to assess it accurately. Charlie Kaufman said that his goal with Synecdoche was to...( read more) replicate, in some senses, the effects of a live theater run. Like live performance, he wanted to craft a piece of work that provides something unpredictable and spontaneous with every viewing. In this sense, he succeeded. I have seen this movie three times to date, and I come to comprehend its mastery with each successive experience. This is a depressing and open-ended analysis of life that, through its subjective and boldly personal approach, forces the audience into a place of reflection. It's not possible to summarize this piece in a brief flixster review. Watch it a few times and decide what it means to you.
  • jboyle10
    August 31, 2009
    jboyle10
    I really, really wanted to like this movie. I did. Roger Ebert, a critic I have a lot of respect for, called it the best movie of the year. There is genius in the movie, and it serves as a kind of window into what it's like to be an artistic genius, but the movie becomes so co...( read more)nvoluted and confusing by alll of the characters playing characters and real life blurring with fantasy that by the end of the movie I wasn't even sure what to take away. This is the kind of movie where both points of view (love it, hate it), might be equally valid.
  • alexp401
    August 27, 2009
    alexp401
    love the theme and the scene in scene reality type
    great film-maker !!
  • Abzurdoh
    August 27, 2009
    Abzurdoh
    Una buena pelicula que quizas tiene un poco te fallas al tratar tantos temas en tiempos mal acomodados. Multiples mensajes, multiples metaforas, multiples imagenes... un sin fin de cosas que valen la pena pero al director le falta claridad y precision sobre lo mas importante que ...( read more)tiene la cinta. Su primer pelicula como director, quizas en las siguientes cintas llegue a sorprendernos sobremanera porque promete y demuestra ser una mente inteligente, pensante y reflexiva. Hay muchos temas que toca que son bastante importantes. Bueno, el mas obvio: todos somos protagonistas de nuestras vidas; muchas veces se nos olvida y acabamos dandole mas importancia a las demas personas que a nosotros mismos, olvidandonos que todo lo que tenemos, lo que somos y lo que conseguimos es un camino que hacemos, pero muchas veces estamos dormidos. Claro, no caer en el egoismo porque al fin y al cabo, todos, las millones de personas que habitamos el planeta somos particularmente diferentes, pero acabamos siendo los mismos: humanos que sienten, piensan y accionan. Tambien habla sobre las personas que viven en la fantasia de ser alguien mas o del vicio de la gente en caer en las redes de gente que tiene algo en comun con algun amor pasado... el nombre, el cabello, los vicios, la boca... algo, pero similar. Habla de no vivir en el pasado sino en el presente, y de la confrontacion de la vida con la soledad. Muchos, muchos mas temas que pudieron haber sido tratados de una manera mas ... tranquila. Con una progresion mas eficaz y no de repente el millon de reflexiones amontonadas en la ultima media hora. Y no puedo poner punto final a mi comentario sin reconocer a Seymour Hoffman que es garantia de calidad en sus actuaciones. Espectacular...
  • Hellshocked
    August 26, 2009
    Hellshocked
    A naked, profound, terrifying and thoroughly depressing masterpiece. Bergman-like in subject matter and ambition it reveals a Charlie Kauffman who is no longer interested in the occasional juvenile asides that I felt at times bogged down some of his earlier scripts.
  • jezzstjezz
    August 25, 2009
    jezzstjezz
    Didn't quite like it as much as I thought I would. Still a good movie.
  • josh808
    August 23, 2009
    josh808
    Painstakingly surreal and humorless.
  • je55icaraerules
    August 20, 2009
    je55icaraerules
    note to self: dont watch movies that you cannot pronounce the english title. it doesnt mean that i dont understand the movie. its just that its so boring watching an old guy's lonely life!
  • ponpontung
    August 17, 2009
    ponpontung
    Great, brilliant movie directed by one of my favorite movie writer Kaufman. incomprehensible, complicated but moving. Some people might find it too kindda stream of consciousness and theatrical to comprehend. But I think it still a good movie giving audience impacts and making de...( read more)ep meditation.
  • Galeocerdo
    August 15, 2009
    Galeocerdo
    The bravery of Charlie Kaufman's bafflingly ambitious directorial debut is exceeded only by its brilliance. It is also one of the most personal films in recent memory; Kaufman digs deep for self-conscious truths by writing himself into his work and keeping it self-referential. Th...( read more)is time, desiring to create something "brutal and honest", Kaufman gives his own artistic ambitions to his main character, Caden Cotard (in itself a reference to a psychological disorder). Caden buries himself in his masterpiece in search of truth and meaning, going further and further down the rabbit hole until his art is indecipherable from his life. We are able to share his confusion, his emotions, and his discoveries because they are universal. The film is largely about fusion; of people, of questions and answers, of life and art and truth. Like theater, and like the life it reflects, the film changes every time you see it, revealing new meaning, new puzzles and details and strokes. The threads of its artistic and psychological themes and inspirations are endlessly labyrinthine, but viewers that are put-off by all the confusion are cheating themselves. The film is an experience that asks a lot of the viewer, intellectually and emotionally, but participation is intensely rewarding.
  • olumiere
    August 9, 2009
    olumiere
    Mais uma ótima experimentação narrativa de Charlie Kaufman.
  • placeinthesun455
    August 7, 2009
    placeinthesun455
    Charlie Kaufman will never give you anything normal or conventional, but this film was just downright strange. probably as dense a "story" as you're likely to find in modern cinema--for only 2 hours, it feels like much much more. a surrealist comedy hidden beneath a drama, Kauf...( read more)man challenges his audience every step of the way to stay on top of time, character relationships, and the overall sense of reality vs. fantasy/delusion. while this is usually a challenge I gladly attempt to meet, I just couldn't get past the extremely dense barrier of pretension and obscurity that is this film's "plot". an interesting enough concept and some very impressive acting performances, but overall this one really didn't do it for me.
  • adamgaboogaboo
    August 3, 2009
    adamgaboogaboo
    Bleak and depressing, yet at the same time whimsical with a strong message: Live! Phillip Seymour Hoffman knocks yet another film out of the park.
  • julisette
    July 27, 2009
    julisette
    Jeuj, wat een fijne film om naar te kijken. Ook als je op een gegeven moment niet meer bijhoudt wie wie is, of misschien wel juist daardoor.
  • jxxx84
    July 26, 2009
    jxxx84
    Worthless movie. I recommend all to stay away from this one.

Summary

Synecdoche, New York Summary