There once lived a guy who wanted to understand life. Not only did he want to understand it, he wanted to accurately represent it in an epic on-stage performance that detailed everything he knew about life. However, the more he tries to understand the less he does...and the more mess he makes of his own life.

Meet Caden Cotard (Philip Seymour Hoffman), a relatively normal man with a wife, Adele (Catherine Keener) and 4-year-old daughter, Olive. Adele is an up-and-coming artist, Caden seems to be fairly happy with work, and everything is going about as planned until Adele announces that she and Olive will be going to an upcoming show in Germany by themselves. They'll only be gone a few days, have some mother/daughter time, and when they get back Adele needs to talk to Caden about their relationship. Only, she never comes back.

Following Adele's abandoning him, Caden seems to lose his grip on reality, being unable to remember how long his wife and daughter have been gone for. His behavior gets increasingly erratic, abated only slightly at the beginnings of a couple other relationships, until he chases away nearly everyone who ever tried to love him in his obsession with finding his daughter, and with creating his masterpiece.

I have to say that, given the description and the outstanding big-name cast, I had some high hopes for this movie. A couple torturous hours later, those hopes were pretty thoroughly dashed. Now, I already expected something pretty weird with writer Charlie Kaufman (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Being John Malkovich), but nothing could have quite prepared me for Kaufman's directorial debut...and maybe this says something about why it's the only movie he has directed thus far.

Synecdoche, New York tends toward the very deep and philosophical and, consequently, the very depressing. One can not look into human nature for very long without becoming exceedingly depressed. Generally this is one kind of movie I really like, though the appeal of such films is not very widespread in the general populace. However, the movie just went way too overboard with it.

As previously mentioned, the film drags on for just over two hours, going into very painful detail about Cotard's personal life...while not really going anywhere else. Every once in a while you'll glimpse what Kaufman is trying to get at, and taken as a whole it is some interesting food for thought, but the point could have been made - possibly more effectively - with a little bit of brevity.

The cast really was well-chosen from some very talented people including Tom Noonan, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Michelle Williams, Samantha Morton and more - in addition to Keener and Hoffman, of course. Unfortunately, this cast was really bogged down by the lackluster script and exceptionally bloated story line.

Overall, this movie really did try to delve into a pretty interesting idea, but I personally feel like it failed miserably. Cut out a few scenes - just 30-60 minutes or so - and maybe, just maybe, we can come up with something worth watching.

Recommended:
No

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: None of the Above
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age