REVIEW: Synecdoche, New York

Synecdoche, New York (dir. Charlie Kaufman, 2008) *****

reviewed by David Sugarman

The critically celebrated, Oscar-winning screenwriter Charlie Kaufman, previously known for penning such startlingly original, surreal movies as Being John Malkovich, Adaptation. and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind has made his directorial debut with what is simply the saddest film I have ever seen. Synecdoche, New York stars Philip Seymour Hoffman as theatre director Caden Cotard, a man plagued by the frailty of his body and his own emotional failings, attempting to do something worthwhile with his life. Receiving a MacArthur Genius Grant (which apparently do exist, though not to the same extent as Caden puts his), Caden decides to put on a new play, one which leads him to oversee the building of a scale-model of New York in a warehouse.

Kaufman’s film is both very funny and emotionally devastating. Hoffman is always fantastic, and has won an Oscar in the past, but that performance can surely have been no greater than his showing here as the tortured Caden. The supporting cast, which includes Samantha Morton, Catherine Keener and Michelle Williams as the major women in Caden’s life is outstanding all-round. Though the situation is possibly even weirder than the premise of Malkovich, and more meta than Adaptation., it is also even more moving than Eternal Sunshine. As Caden’s life slowly progresses (revealed through subtle alterations of costume and make-up, until you realise that 20 years have passed), bits and pieces of his life fall away, until… well. This film brought me closer to tears than any other in years. Which I applaud.

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Synecdoche, New York is on at the Warwick Student Cinema on this Sunday, at 18:30 and 21:30. Please go and see it. It’ll make me happy if you do. This review contains no mention of two other Kaufman-scripted films: Human Nature, which was directed by Michel Gondry, and is not without its moments of genius but is largely underwhelming, and Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, directed by George Clooney. Which I haven’t yet seen.

David

edit: word has just reached me that Fox have cancelled Joss Whedon’s latest TV show, Dollhouse. While it wasn’t always consistent, Dollhouse was a very intelligent and entertaining show, and I’m sorry to see it go. Happily, however, it will be allowed to run for the remainder of its second season so Whedon can give it a decent ending, something that his previous Fox cancelletion (the vastly superior Firefly, possibly the best TV show I’ve ever seen) was denied.

REVIEW: Everlasting Moments

Everlasting Moments (dir. Jan Troell, 2008) **

reviewed by David Sugarman

Sweden’s entry into the 2009 Academy Awards for Best Film in a Foreign Language did not make the list of nominees. I am not surprised. Sometimes films like Everlasting Moments catch some kind of critical zeitgeist and sweep the board, but there was no such luck for this stagnant, pompous portrait of family life in early 20th century Sweden.

The premise of the film is a rocky and apparently loveless marriage that seems to have been born entirely of the shared desire to own a camera, which is instantly put away and forgotten for years. When the wife, Maria, rediscovers the camera, she attempts to sell it, but is persuaded instead to do use it. Mostly the put-upon housewife uses it to pay the bills by charging her friends and neighbours for portraits, but the photography provides the one truly electric scene here, when Maria photographs the corpse of a child who has drowned for her friend. The movie is narrated by her daughter Maja, who was not present for 90% of the action and director Troell never attempts to explain how Maja knows what happens. Over the two-and-a-bit hours of its running time, Everlasting Moments shows its audience repeated incidents of domestic abuse perpetrated by the family’s patriarch, a boorish, philandering, idiot drunk of a man – one of the least sympathetic characters I have seen on screen- whose marriage we are asked to support. Actually, he’s probably the most interesting character in the piece. And he’s boring.

Walking out of the cinema, I heard countless elderly audience members praising this “lovely bit of social history”. Jan Troell’s film aims for grit and charm but manages instead to be both overly sentimental and soulless.

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This film made me angry. Has anyone else seen it? I’d like alternative opinions.

David