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Synecdoche, New York
Sony Pictures Classics


7.4

based on 34 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 110 votes
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MPAA RATING: R for language and some sexual content/nudity

Starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, Dianne Wiest, Samantha Morton, Catherine Keener, Michelle Williams, Emily Watson, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Hope Davis, and Tom Noonan

Theater director Caden Cotard is mounting a new play. His life catering to suburban blue-hairs at the local regional theater in Schenectady, New York is looking bleak. His wife Adele has left him to pursue her painting in Berlin, taking their young daughter Olive with her. His therapist, Madeleine Gravis, is better at plugging her best-seller than she is at counseling him. A new relationship with the alluringly candid Hazel has prematurely run aground. And a mysterious condition is systematically shutting down each of his autonomic functions, one by one. Worried about the transience of his life, he leaves his home behind. He gathers an ensemble cast into a warehouse in New York City, hoping to create a work of brutal honesty. He directs them in a celebration of the mundane, instructing each to live out their constructed lives in a growing mockup of the city outside. (Sony Classics)

GENRE(S):	Comedy \| Drama
WRITTEN BY:	Charlie Kaufman
DIRECTED BY:	Charlie Kaufman
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: March 10, 2009 Theatrical: October 24, 2008
RUNNING TIME:	124 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	USA
LANGUAGE(S):	English \| German

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

The New York Times Manohla Dargis

To say that Charlie Kaufman's Synecdoche, New York is one of the best films of the year or even one closest to my heart is such a pathetic response to its soaring ambition that I might as well pack it in right now.

100

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

I think you have to see Charlie Kaufman's Synecdoche, New York twice. I watched it the first time and knew it was a great film and that I had not mastered it. The second time because I needed to. The third time because I will want to.

100

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Travis Nichols

Although obviously a stretched and lightly drawn caricature -- the cerebral writer is obsessed with his work, has metaphorical skin problems, can't have sex without weeping, etc. -- Cotard is real. Or as real a representation of an artist as we're likely to get in this biopic age.

100

Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten

Synecdoche is the kind of movie that rewards repeated viewings. But sometimes, as Van Morrison sings, it's just best to "sail into the mystic."

100

Empire Andrew Male

Astonishing. Kaufman has surpassed himself with a film that will delight and confound. You will want to see it again. And again.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

In effect, Caden's life passes before his eyes while he is living it. And Kaufman shares this effect with us through a strange process he achieves with invisible strings; it's a knockout.

Time Richard Corliss

No film with an ambition this large, and achievement this impressive, can be anything but exhilarating, a vital affirmation of the creative process.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

It's got more imagination than half a dozen movies combined; there's nothing else out there like this, and to me that's a very good thing.

Premiere Emily Rems

At turns as neurotic and nebbishy as any Woody Allen flick, as creepy and disorienting as your favorite "Twilight Zone" episode, and as steeped in magical realism as the most moving Márquez novel, Synecdoche may not be the feel-good date movie of the year. But for viewers up for the challenge, it may be the film most likely to stick with you.

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

I can't pretend to know fully what Charlie Kaufman is up to in Synecdoche, New York, with all the doubled characters, dreamy reenactments, comical minutiae, and personal unhappiness. But I got a great deal of pleasure out of watching him mount his fantasia about an artist suffering not simply for his art, but because of it.

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

As a director, Kaufman isn't yet his own best salesman. He's not enough of a visual stylist to sell his script's most challenging conceits. But the cast rises to a very strange and rich occasion.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

For this master of mindfuckery, Synecdoche, New York probably qualifies as a magnum opus, since it essentially multiplies "Adaptation" by an exponential factor and thus grows into a snarling, ungainly beast of self-reflexive absurdities.

NPR Bob Mondello

Synecdoche, New York is one heck of a head-trip.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

You have never seen a movie quite like this one.

Film Threat Mariko McDonald

It is a sprawling, ambitious and very long look at so many things, it's almost a miracle he was able to wrap it up in just two hours. And yet, for a film that is principally about death, the conclusion is surprisingly life-affirming, especially coming from Kaufman.

Los Angeles Times Carina Chocano

Sprawling, awe-inspiring, heartbreaking, frustrating, hard-to-follow and achingly, achingly sad movie.

Village Voice Scott Foundas

Like most of Kaufman's work as a writer, Synecdoche, New York is a head trip that time and again returns to a place of real human emotion--in this case, to the idea that no matter how brilliant we may be or think we are, we're all looking for a little guidance (or, yes, direction) in life.

The Hollywood Reporter Ray Bennett

Will mesmerize some and mystify others, while many will be bored silly. It's not a dream, Kaufman says, but it has a dreamlike quality, and those won over by its otherworldly jigsaw puzzle of duplicated characters, multiple environments and shifting time frames will dissect it endlessly.

Variety Todd McCarthy

A wildly ambitious and gravely serious contemplation of life, love, art, human decay and death, the film bears Kaufman’s scripting fingerprints in its structural trickery and multiplane storytelling.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Philip Seymour Hoffman creates a mesmerizing portrait of the artist as a young, old and middle-aged man.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

In Synecdoche, Kaufman the screenwriter is not well-served by Kaufman the filmmaker. As a director, his propensity for heavyosity leadens rather than leavens this affair.

New York Daily News Joe Neumaier

Hoffman, Morton and Jon Brion's aching score somehow capture the all-too-human need to get things right. If you're in a certain frame of mind, those moments make up for all the stagecraft.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

Strives to be a work of greatness. But Kaufman's overarching vision is a lot less interesting than the small insights he gathers along the way. This is what happens when life imitates art, and blows it.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Just because a movie is ambitious and challenging doesn't mean it can't also be tedious and at times unbearable.

Slate Dana Stevens

The problem is that the movie's worldview, in the end, isn't expansive enough to justify the (quite literal) stage it takes place on.

The New Yorker Anthony Lane

There has long been a strain of sorry lassitude in Kaufman's work, and here it sickens into the morbid.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

The temptation to be emphatic about Synecdoche, New York is overwhelming but should be resisted, because the movie really is a mixed bag. A particularly odd mix.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

It seems more like an illustration of his (Kaufman) script than a full-fledged movie, proving how much he needs a Spike Jonze or a Michel Gondry to realize his surrealistic conceits.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

Here, there's not much that's funny, there's too much that's too clever by half, and there's not a damn thing that's lively - this is a film about Life whose sin is its lifelessness.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

As the movie rambles along with its own brand of quasi-magical surrealism, the links to real experience grow scarcer and more frayed.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

Watching the film is also wearying, like assembling a puzzle from a box into which a sadist continually pours new pieces. I was still processing details when the abrupt ending snatched the puzzle away.

New York Magazine David Edelstein

It's heartbreaking how rich this failed project is, with enough poetry for several great movies, but not enough push for one.

USA Today Claudia Puig

The film disappoints terribly, too. The directorial debut of such an imaginative and clever screenwriter was a highly anticipated event. His "Being John Malkovich" and "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" are two of the most innovative and intriguing movies of the past decade. Synecdoche is one of the most maddening.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

I gave up making heads or tails of Synecdoche, New York, but I did get one message: The compulsion to stand outside of one's life and observe it to THIS degree isn't the mechanism of art -- it's the structure of psychosis.

The average user rating for this movie is 7.4 (out of 10) based on 110 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Hugo T gave it a10:
First, it's OK with me if you didn't find this to be an excellent movie because, frankly, I have nothing against the dead.

J Jones gave it a3:
Oh my gosh this is a tedious and depressing movie. I usually go head first into these types of films (I greatly enjoyed David Lynch's challenging Inland Empire), but I just couldn't take it. This movie seems to have no reason to live other than to obsessively, repeatedly, depressingly explore a tragic and possibly psychotic worldview. This film has many fans which will gladly dole out shallow judgment upon those who will not submit to this whiny, annoying movie, but I submit that they are either in love with the idea of such a film (and not the film itself) or they are so desensitized that it takes this kind of horror-disguised-as-drama to get through. I am sooooo tired of blue color-cast, shoe-gazing films about how terrible the human experience is. Heck, even the shows and commercials on TV all seem to be turning blue just to follow suit. Just because you are depressed, psychotic and have a large budget does not mean you have the right to inflict such a monstrosity on the public.

Ellen B gave it a9:
I wonder if the difference between liking this film and not liking it depend on whether Kaufman's preoccupations are your preoccupations and if they are not. Personally, I felt like someone I had never met must know me perfectly. Despite the darkness and sadness of much of the film, it was hugely liberating to know that others feel those same fears when it comes to trying to live life and spend much of their time resisting a kind of oppressive narcissism that gets in the way of every human connection they make. Kaufman has presented a particular kind of neurosis, with all its petty humiliations and sweeping tragedy, to perfection. I couldn't give it a perfect score because it feels like such a deeply personal film, but it will resonate with me for a very, very long time.

Pixie Eleven gave it a10:
A thoroughly devastating film, a masterpiece.

Paul D gave it a4:
Dreamlike exploration of a creative life whose attention to detail and stellar cast are undone by glacial pace and listless direction. An ambitious failure that shows that Kaufman the writer is best served by a non-Kaufman director.

Matthew G gave it a10:
There is a difference between a film being depressing and a film being sad. Synecdoche New york has a handful of desperately sad and stark moments, but depressing? Definitely not. It's enlightening and uplifiting. It takes a while to get going but the movie's finale is utterly shattering. If you're comfortable with the view that your life begins and ends with the here-and-now, this is a movie that will confirm and comfort you. I will be seeing it again soon.

peter m gave it a2:
I too can barely believe this got made, or at least that the distributor didn't demand that it be substantially shortened. seymour hoffman is great and the early scenes are promising. but it becomes so ridiculous and so un-related to the reality of anyone who's not a writer without economic constraints that it is a complete waste of time. its a shame; 'adaptation', particularly shows kaufman can produce genius, but what this film says about his mental state right now is worrying.

Synecdoche, New York Sony Pictures Classics

Synecdoche, New York
Sony Pictures Classics