Punch Drunk ‘Synecdoche’

We saw “Synechdoche, New York,” and we’re resisting the urge to say too much as it’s a heady film and a lot to process. This is essentially the experiential review we wrote last night on the way home.

New Yorkers don’t ever look up. This is pretty much fact. We’re surrounded by mammoth and spectacular buildings yet we never bother to stop and look at them. Leaving Charlie Kaufman’s “Synecdoche, NY” not only did I look up in a drunken daze and marvel at the night time gleaming spectacle, I stood in awe and stared.

After the film, which was by no means as flawless as this account might be suggesting, my molecules felt rearranged and I fumbled around aimlessly for a while before I caught my breath.

This is what at the very least, the imperfect ‘Synecdoche’ is capable of, scrambling the eggs of your mind and swirling you around for a bit afterwards which is something even spectacular films don’t usually do. Have you ever left a theater from an exhausting experience, and felt a heightened sense of self? A heightened sense of your surroundings and awareness? Yeah, pretty much like that.

For better or worse, ‘Synecdoche’ was everything it aimed to be: a hyper-metatextual work about life, death, love and loss through art – both through the characters and the filmmaker. It’s as bold and ambitious as you’ve heard and yes, a little bit confounding too. The film pretty much nailed the script and was just as funny, sad and brutal as the original story.

The difference between this one and all the other Charlie Kaufman mindbenders is, while the others were quirky and fanciful in their meta-textualness, ‘Synecdoche,’ was ultimately more nightmarishly meta in that oblique and elliptical manner. It’s essentially a story about the inevitability and fear of death which at times makes for a sad and grim experience though it is wickedly funny too.

It’s interesting to note: many of the film’s songs – sad jazzy torch songs sung in smoky bars – were co-written by Kaufman and Jon Brion, so the director wasn’t kidding when he said he had written songs for the film way back when. Whether he just contributed lyrics or what is unclear, but our hunch is he gave Brion a bunch of melodies and ideas that the multi-faceted musician could flesh out (a soundtrack is coming via Lakeshore records tentatively on October 14; there’s also a lot of Brion score material that’s mostly unlike his past soundtrack work).

There’s a lot more to write, but we’ve got to move on and continue to digest. We will say that Phillip Seymour Hoffman was an amazing as usual and really gave his all. It must have been a tough experience for him as his character spends what seems like half the movie in physical pain and lugubrious tears. As we figured, the Sammy character that stalks PSH played by Tom Noonan was an incredible riot. We couldn’t get enough of him. Other standouts were Samantha Morton and Emily Watson; both of who were wonderful.

Our head is still swimming, we need to sit down.