mrs. noz and i saw synecdoche, ny last night. i'm a big fan of charlie kaufman, so i really wanted to give this film the benefit of the doubt. and while i really enjoyed the first 30 minutes or so, it's hard to see the rest of it as anything other than a complete train wreck.
it helps to understand the film if you know what synecdoche means. (the examples are more helpful than the definition). kaufman clearly is trying to say something about the nature of creativity and how a person can take on another persona during the creative process. hell, that's what all of his movies are about. also in all of his films, it always feels like kaufman is trying to push the plot a little over the top by the end. this time, i think he simply pushed too soon and too far.
when you pile oddities upon oddities, eventually the oddness overwhelms the film. kaufman's quirky exploration of his themes are shoveled on top of one another until the movie is nothing but quirk. it's just a big convoluted metaphor that loses its power the longer it stays on screen. kaufman's sense of humor, which i really like, itself gets diluted by overuse. there is no there there. or, at least, i think i got all i could out of the there a good hour before the end of the film.
and yet, plenty of people out there seem to really like this movie. i wonder if they're not giving it more credit than it deserves. just because it's weird and convoluted doesn't necessarily mean that it's hiding any deeper truths. if you untangle all its thread, i suspect you'd say: "that's it? i got that in the first half."
