Synecdoche, New York

Synecdoche is the latest Charlie Kaufman movie, crammed with a wealth of superb acting, weirdness, and too many ideas to absorb. In other words, it's a typical Kaufman production. For someone as simple-minded as myself, it was an ambivalent lesson in patience and confusion. Although it's not exactly Kaufman's magnum opus, Synecdoche tries to pack in death, life, relationships, work, and everything else this side of the Milky Way.

Philip Seymour Hoffman plays the director Caden Cotard, who spends the last n years of his life believing that he's on the verge of death, and consequently creating a play about his life, even going so far as to make a miniature of New York City in an abandoned gymnasium. He goes through a list of women, starting with his ex-wife Adele (Catherine Keener) and daughter Olive, then his current and to be ex-wife Claire (Michelle Williams), and finally ending up with his always elusive flame, Hazel (Samantha Morton). The acting is tremendous from every angle, and although the message is a bit hazy (life tosses and turns you constantly into new roads?), the whole thing is a riot.

More must be said of Philip Seymour Hoffman, who is amazing and pathetic in this role (He's good at acting pathetic). He rejects death by fighting for meaning in his life, which becomes his work and vice versa. The movie takes a bit of a fatalist spin on life and death, marginalizing as well as elevating people's lives and importance. All of us are actors in our little plays, and sometimes we're interchangeable, and we almost always can't see the bigger picture. The more I think about this movie, the more I'm convinced that I need to watch it again (although part of me is cringing at the toll it will take on my somewhat insignificant brain and body).

Kaufman's style is unique as a weird realism/fantastic jag, but I'm just not a fan. Nor can I pinpoint the significance or fascination with excrement, although the burning house was pure genius. I take issue with movies that don't have a certain tone (or more subtle tone that requires careful study), and frankly, movies that make me feel like I've only grasped the tip of the iceberg.