The Theatre of Life

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An apartment perpetually on fire. A young girl with a full-body tattoo. A stalker cast to play the man he has been following for 20 years. Welcome to the weird world of Charlie Kaufman’s Synedoche, New York. In his directorial debut, Kaufman (the creative mind behind the screenplays for Being John Malkovich and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) swings for the fences and, although he doesn’t knock it out of the park, he still provides the viewer with a lot to think about after the credits roll. This mind-bender of a film warrants a second viewing to properly digest and appreciate.

Phillip Seymour Hoffman, the best of a top-notch cast, portrays the protagonist, Caden Cotard (a clear stand-in for Kaufman). I am hard-pressed to think of another actor who could do a better job bringing Caden to life. From longing, to sadness, to anger, and resignation, Hoffman is able to completely embody the variety of emotions that Caden exhibits throughout the course of the film. Things start out relatively normal: Caden, a theater director, and his wife, who paints miniature portraits, played by the consistently impressive Catherine Keener, live in Schenectady, New York with their 4-year old daughter Olive (Sadie Goldstein). While attending couples therapy with a bookselling therapist (Hope Davis), Adele confesses that she fantasizes about the death of her husband. In Caden’s latest directorial effort, Death of a Salesman, his use of young actors and actresses for the middle-aged roles has attracted critical acclaim. Due to his obsession with salvaging his relationship with Adele, Caden ignores the advances of Hazel (Samantha Morton), who runs the box office at his theater, and Claire (Michelle Williams), an actress who stars in his play. Odd physical ailments assault Caden at every turn but it may all be in his head (“Cotard’s syndrome” is the delusion that one’s body is decaying). He is referred from doctor to doctor and never seems to be given a definitive diagnosis. Adele, who is less than impressed with Caden’s play and with Caden in general, decides to go to Berlin with Olive to exhibit her paintings. Shortly after Adele and Olive leave, Caden is notified that he has won a MacArthur genius grant that will fund his magnum opus. So begins the film’s and Caden’s journey away from anything that might be considered normal. One week later Caden is told that an entire year has gone by.



Caden begins work on a theatrical piece so epic that he uses what seems to be the biggest airplane hangar in the world (which is somehow located in Manhattan) as his stage and begins to construct a microcosm of life on the outside – a sort of mirror world. The unnamed play is a synecdoche— a figure of speech to indicate when a part of something represents the whole. The hugely ambitious play becomes an obsession for Caden and it begins to consume his life as well as the lives of all those involved. Rehearsals appear to go on around the clock and Caden is constantly adding to and changing the script and the set in an attempt to exorcise his own demons and explore the human condition. As he states, “There are nearly thirteen million people in the world. None of those people is an extra. They’re all the leads of their own stories. They have to be given their due.” What was designed to be a reflection of life becomes an alternate reality unto itself. Caden is using the play to try to find meaning in his own life but eventually the play becomes his life and the two are so intermingled that it becomes almost impossible for Caden and the audience to differentiate between them.

Loss is a central theme of Synecdoche, New York. Hoffman’s character is always mourning some loss, whether it is the loss of his daughter, his failed relationships, or his health. However, he is unable to properly reflect on these losses except through rehearsals for his play. His obsession with things that he cannot control and the past leads him to neglect the present— his new wife and daughter. Amidst all the sadness, loneliness, and death that permeate the film, there are unexpected moments of laugh-out-loud humor, although usually of the dark variety. Patient viewers will feel rewarded with the challenge of interpreting the cryptic plot. However, this is a double-edged sword for Kaufman – while all the intellectualizing can bring up some fascinating ideas and theories, it works in opposition to the emotional side of the film and does little to illuminate the relationships between the main characters. The film loses momentum after the first half and begins to drag but recovers towards the end.

Synecdoche, New York alternately mocks artistic pretension and celebrates the creative process of following your muse. The most fitting comparison might be Federico Fellini’s 8 1/2, as both films feature overlapping subplots and artists struggling with personal and professional crises. Like Caden with his mammoth theatre, director Charlie Kaufman’s attempt to embody the vast drama of life in 124 minutes is admirably ambitious, but perhaps a little too epic for this commendable film with such delicate feelings.


Synecdoche, New York opens November 7 at the Angelika Film Center, Houston.