Synecdoche, New York

2008

Action / Comedy / Drama / Romance

Plot summary


Uploaded by: OTTO

Top cast

Samantha Morton Photo
Samantha Morton as Hazel
Michelle Williams Photo
Michelle Williams as Claire Keen
Catherine Keener Photo
Catherine Keener as Adele Lack
720p.BLU 1080p.BLU
751.97 MB
1280*720
English 2.0
R
23.976 fps
2 hr 4 min
P/S 3 / 18
2.28 GB
1920*816
English 5.1
R
23.976 fps
2 hr 3 min
P/S 1 / 38

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by lee_eisenberg10 / 10

hyperreality affects the mind, the spirit, and the body

I wouldn't go so far as to call Charlie Kaufman's "Synecdoche, New York" one of the greatest movies of its decade, but its intellectual profundity makes it one of the most impressive pieces of work. This story of a theater director whose life is unraveling has so many layers that it's hard to describe. An obvious point is that the movie goes to great lengths to blur fiction and reality, as the protagonist's play begins to look more and more like real life.

An important point is that time progresses throughout the movie without the characters stating it, or background objects showing it. The protagonist is shown aging, as is his daughter, while he expands his model city. Interestingly, the warehouse is impossibly large, while his ex-wife's art gets smaller over the course of the movie.

Key to the movie is Philip Seymour Hoffman's performance. He plays Caden as a man at the end of his emotional rope, just like Willy Loman (whom Caden plays early on). It's too bad that Hoffman isn't with us anymore. I have no doubt that he would still be playing great roles were he alive today.

Plenty of outstanding support comes from the rest of the cast. Catherine Keener, Samantha Morton, Michelle Williams, Tom Noonan, Emily Watson, Hope Davis, Dianne Wiest, and the rest of them show themselves to be some of the finest performers of our era.

Basically, any film buff owes it to himself/herself to see this movie.

Reviewed by SnoopyStyle6 / 10

highly ambitious

Theater director Caden Cotard (Philip Seymour Hoffman) is physically falling apart. He is working on the play Death of a Salesman with his leading lady Claire Keen (Michelle Williams). His wife Adele Lack (Catherine Keener) goes on a trip with their daughter Olive. Box office girl Hazel (Samantha Morton) keeps flirting with him. He gets a grant and rents out a giant space. He starts building a play where the cast does everyday things. The world inside the giant space starts becoming more real than the real world. Caden and Claire become parents with a girl as reality and fiction become indistinguishable.

This is a highly ambitious movie coming from the outsider mind of Charlie Kaufman. The start is pretty slow especially with a depressed Philip Seymour Hoffman. The movie turns very loopy, imaginative and utterly original. This is a movie trying to be life itself. It loses some of its cohesiveness as it tries to be too much. At times, I'm both resigned to not being able to grab hold of the story and interested to see more loopy ideas. I give Kaufman full marks for being unrestrained in his vision but this may need a bit more to make it an accessible watch.

Reviewed by Prismark103 / 10

Kaufman sinks his boat

Synecdoche, New York is written by Charlie Kaufman and is also his directorial debut. Its a topsy turvy mess of a film that will leave you baffled and by the end bored.

Despite some good performances and set design its unfathomable. The film starts off straightforward enough as Philip Seymour Hoffman, Christine Keener are husband and wife living in an apartment with a young daughter. Hoffman has issues with his health, so does his daughter and it seems the marriage may not be happy as it seems. If you are keen eyed you will notice the newspaper date jumps about in time. A clue that not everything is all it seems, not unusual in a film written by Kaufman.

As the film progresses and Keener leaves Hoffman the film gets more confusing and surreal. Hoffman spurns the romantic attention of Samantha Morton and it seems is oblivious to the sexual attraction of his therapist which later in the film is revealed as his latent homosexuality.

This is before we get to his staging of his play which drags on for years and become more self indulgent and surreal.

I do not mind a trippy film if there was some reward. The film instead just fights its audience. Kaufman the writer needed someone else to direct and rein it in a little and bring some focus.

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