The line between reality and imagination, possibility and pipe-dream, become immaterial, and the film becomes the overflowing contents of a fertile mind spilled out all across the screen.
CommentJun 12, 2010
Synecdoche, New York (2008)
68
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:172
Fresh:116
Rotten:56
Average Rating:6.6/10
Consensus: Charlie Kaufman's ambitious directorial debut occasionally strains to connect, but ultimately provides fascinating insight into a writer's mind.
Theatrical Release: Oct 24, 2008 Wide
Box Office: $3.0M
Synopsis: 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... [More]
Starring: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Samantha Morton, Michelle Williams, Catherine Keener
Director: Charlie Kaufman
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REVIEWS FOR SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK
His directorial debut is a remarkably deep and rich film, somewhat daunting upon first showing, challenging the audience to take in this complex movie.
Apr 15, 2010
Inaccessible and endlessly frustrating, Synecdoche is replete with art-house pomposity and the type of muddled profundity one sees in an introductory philosophy seminar.
Aug 30, 2009
Every scene is pitched at the highest level and acted accordingly.
Jun 28, 2009
Kaufman, who once dazzled us with his japester's invention, uses those same tools to do something else here. He leaves us reeling.
May 17, 2009
This is a classic Kaufmanesque work: bold, bizarre and utterly baffling.
May 17, 2009
This is a movie designed to provoke, entertain and infuriate, that boldly goes into areas where few films from the English-speaking world nowadays dare penetrate.
May 17, 2009
Synecdoche, New York finally feels bitter, hollow and adolescent: like a gargantuan music video conceived for an emo band with a penchant for Pirandello.
May 17, 2009
Synecdoche (pronounced Sih-neck-doh-kee, by the way) is beautifully acted throughout, scripted by Kaufman with the same valorous unorthodoxy as his Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and shot with real panache.
May 15, 2009
Somehow, because it resists unlocking, it feels more serious, troubling, significant. It’s as funny as it’s depressing. It’s as brilliant as it is baffling.
May 15, 2009
A soul-altering, heart-changing, brain-transplanting masterpiece.
May 15, 2009
A toweringly ambitious and bafflingly confusing film that gives a glimpse of the daily battles going on in the director’s mind.
May 15, 2009
The film is either a masterpiece or a massively dysfunctional act of self-indulgence and self-laceration. It has brilliance, either way: surreal, utterly distinctive, witty, gloomy in the manner that his fans will recognise and adore.
May 15, 2009
A difficult, maddening and elusive film that’s also intriguing, profound and darkly funny.
May 15, 2009
For too long Caden (and Kaufman) are raising big issues and only grasping at the edges, which makes the film frustrating to watch.
May 15, 2009
Like the play within the film, Synecdoche is bravely ambitious, with glimpses of Kaufman’s genius. But it’s also an indulgent slog that only the most diehard Kaufmanites will happily endure.
May 15, 2009
It seems churlish to overly criticise. Kaufman’s daring, ambition and frequent moments of beauty and sadness are worth the overindulgence.
May 15, 2009
Awash with ideas, imagination and structural daring, Kaufman’s latest is an audacious experiment that repays multiple viewings.
May 15, 2009
Despite flaws of intellectual hubris, this is no vanity botch-up like Southland Tales. Fairweather fans may flee towards sunnier pictures. But when it’s in the zone, it’s moving, radical and exhilarating.
May 15, 2009
His film is about the way life transmutes into art, but the art he creates is so lifeless as to be alienating. It's a piece poking fun at morbid self-indulgence that becomes morbid and self-indulgent itself.
May 15, 2009
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October 22, 2008:
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