Synecdoche, New York (2008) Charlie Kaufman

Production Budget: $12.4 million Gross: $2.5 million

There was a cynical chuckle I heard when Synechdoche, New York ended.  A chuckle I am familiar with due to my frequent trips to the theaters.  It was a chuckle as if to say “What did I get into?  Boy that Charlie Kaufman is a goofball!  This movie was so terrible and confusing, I missed out on NASCAR and my Everybody Loves Raymond re-runs for this.  You dragged me to see this art house crap?  I never passed the third grade.”

Yup, that chuckle said all that.

Let’s get this out of the way right now.  Synechdote, New York is a difficult film to watch.  It is like David Lynch and Richard Kelly had a love child and that love child was tripping balls.  Yes, I am a pretentious douche.  That being said, this is a great movie.

I will not pretend I am smarter than anyone and profess that the movie is about this or that or that I understood what this movie is all about.  Frankly if anyone made that claim I would kick their ass for being a lying son of a bitch.  The movie has so many layers and so many angles that I could watch it 50 times and tell you 50 different things I noticed.  I didn’t really catch a clear cut moral or message Charlie Kaufman is trying to suggest and I am sure that is the reason many people will hate the movie.  How many of you can watch a movie with a barely discernible plot, seemingly random story twists, and no real message to it.  Hell, that is my argument to many David Lynch fans.

I guess why I like it so much is that I connected with many of the feelings of the main character.  There are moments of insecurity; about life, about relationships, about love, about art, about love (again), about purpose.  Its about introspection and despair and exploring your life.  Its a movie you reflect on and see how it applies to you.  I’m sorry if I don’t really have a plot explanation but if I did it truly would not make any sense and would not in any way represent what is really going on.  I was just sitting in the theater looking at this meekish, smart, but insecure/troubled man and seeing more of myself than I really wished to admit.

This is a movie that will be ignored both in the public and when the Academy season rolls around.  It is a movie too art house for the regular public and too original and good for independent film/Sundance posers.  So another weekend goes by and I will be sitting around, snobbish as ever (I may even sneak in a Latte) watching Twilight rake in hundreds of millions secure in the knowledge that I and only about six other people have seen a truly great movie.  Cheers.