Synecdoche, New York
Directed by Charlie Kaufman
Starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, Catherine Keener, Michelle Williams, Samantha Morton, Tilda Swinton
Rated R
Release Date: October 24, 2008 (limited)

On a personal level, I consider Charlie Kaufman the most talented working screenwriter in Hollywood. I don’t think I am alone in this thought. His resume is one of impressive and envious of anyone in the past however many years you want to use to quantify it. It is one thing to craft a story with intelligent structure and dialogue. It is another thing altogether to create entire universes that have a distinct taste and smell to them. When you sit down to watch a Kaufman scripted film, there is an expected level of chaos and disorder. Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind — all of these films have a wildly imaginative subject and scope, which is exactly the reasons we love them so much.

Synecdoche, New York marks Kaufman’s directorial debut and to the general movie-going public it will amount to little more than a confusing movie with a confusing title. Fans of his work will draw pretty much the same conclusion. On one hand it is an almost unapproachably pretentious movie with a title that is difficult to pronounce (“˜si-NEK-duh-kee’, by the way). On the other hand it is a movie that sort of transcends explanation. That’s not a movie critic cop-out, it just has many, many layers beyond its face value.