Member review

Synecdoche, New York written and directed by Charlie Kauffman is quite possibly one of the greatest films ever made. To try and do this film justice in a few paragraphs would be impossible due to the sheer complexity portrayed on screen, so I’ll attempt to explain some of the reasons why this is my favourite film of all time without going into too much detail about the narrative.

Charlie Kauffman, who already established himself as one of the best and most original writers working in the film industry with films such as Being John Malkovich, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Anomalisa etc. has managed to create the perfect mixture of realism and surrealism with his directorial debut. This is seen by an incredible performance by Phillip Seymour Hoffman which I must say may be the best performance of his illustrious career, as he is able to illustrate this depressing persona who is trying to evoke all of his sorrow in the form of a play which is quite literally ‘larger than life’. All the other performances in the film which include performances from Emily Watson, Samantha Morton, Michelle Williams and Tom Noonan are very honest yet quirky which adds to the sense of surrealism which Kauffman presented with this film. The screenplay, as usual, is superb and manages to keep the narrative moving forward with not a single dull moment which may slow the movie down. The music by Jon Brion accompanies the movie’s tone to a tee and is made even better by the fact that Kauffman himself wrote the lyrics to some of the songs to match the precise theme a particular scene is going for. On a technical aspect, this film is perfect, but what makes this film one of my favourites is the ambitious themes Kauffman decided to explore in the 2 hours and 4-minute runtime.

The two main themes of this film are quite literally: time and death. Firstly, the theme of time is quite obvious when watching the film for the first time as without anyone realising, we begin to understand that time is going in a very unconventional way as years can diminish and dissapear within one or two scenes, giving a whole new meaning to ‘time slipping out of our hands’. This is used to symbolise to an extreme how time is going faster and faster without any of us realising to a point where a whole period of our life is over and we lose ‘something we can’t return to’ which is a song composed by Jon Brion and used appropriately in several scenes where the main character is going through a similar feeling. Furthermore, the way that Kauffman portrays the main character Caden Cotard, performed by Hoffman, is very interesting and helps exemplify this theme of time. Throughout the film Caden complains of possibly ‘suffering’ from several conditions which are never mentioned again in the film; however, there are several subtleties in the film which suggest that Caden is in fact suffering from problems which he seemingly ignores which suggests that this character would rather focus on wasting time on things which end up having no impact on his life, whilst ignoring the apparent issues that may take affect later on. This symbolises how we as human beings tend to focus our mindsets on things which essentially mean nothing and will add up to nothing as a form of procrastination where we could focus on the genuine problems which we have in life, but we ignore due to inconvenience. This is a very powerful suggestion which has had a large impact on myself and the way I view films as I began to realise the underlying meaning films can have.

As mentioned, the theme of death is also explored throughout the films as Caden is constantly obsessed with it which could explain why Caden’s play grows to become larger than life, and due to its scale, will never be able to be truly understood as he never really wants it to die. One of the most powerful statements this film shows is towards the end of the film where a particular character which Caden is very close to dies which forces Caden to re-think the essence of the play and decides that it’ll become the last day he spent with this character which he said was the best day of his life. This in a sense could be Kauffman’s way of presenting his meaning of life, as it is less to do with trying to accomplish as much as we can in the time we have and more about creating relationships and remaining close and trusting to people we love as this will lead us to the most powerful memories moments before we end up dying like everyone else which is very powerful in itself.

As I explained, this film is way too complex to try and do justice in a few paragraphs as there are so many other themes that Kauffman explores such as the theme of gender identity which should also be discussed. However I do hope that anybody that ends up reading this review will check this film out due to its ambitious presentation and its powerful meaning which changed the way I view films and is why this my favourite movie of all time.