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 EXCLUSIVE SCRIPT REVIEW: "SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK"

Is "Synecdoche, New York" a place AMPAS would like to know?

No Major Spoilers

By Kelly Doucette

From the man who introduced you to the minds of John Malkovich and his own [fictitious] screenwriter twin brother Donald Kaufman, among others, comes a lavish character study centering on a depressed theater director attempting to stage a look at the realities of life and death. Charlie Kaufman, whose most recent screenwriting credit was his 2004 Oscar-winning ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND, is all set to make his directorial debut from an original screenplay he wrote himself. Among the talent involved in this latest production are Academy Award winners/nominees Philip Seymour Hoffman, Samantha Morton, Michelle Williams, Catherine Keener, and Dianne Wiest, as well as character actors Tom Noonan and Jennifer Jason Leigh.

Let me start this review off by discussing characters and what they mean to the film in progress as a whole. Without a doubt, the star of this film is Oscar-winning CAPOTE star Hoffman. He plays struggling theater writer/director Caden Cotard. Caden is a man of many flaws; he is struggling to survive an unknown disease, he goes through two wives and a lover without finding lasting love, and he has yet to determine his reason to live whilst living with so much unhappiness. His first wife, Adele, played by Hoffman’s CAPOTE co-star Keener, is a world-renowned artist who takes their young daughter and her best friend, Olive and Maria, respectively, to live in Germany where she can best demonstrate her artistic abilities. Throughout the passing years, Caden struggles to find his first wife and their daughter, but to little prevail. Kaufman makes use of a lot of vulgarity; there is discussion of stool, vomit, masturbation, homoerotica, sex, nudity, urination, and adultery. That said, [some] Republicans as well as an occasional Liberal could easily disapprove of this particular film. Kaufman is not afraid of being honest, and that is what is most refreshing about this read.

Before I continue, I thought I should make it known that I did not read the final ten pages of the screenplay; this way, I can go to my local Cineplex and actually get something out of it because I know most of its twists and turns. But, please do not let that stop you from finishing this review. Okay, that said, let’s continue. I have a few complaints about the flow of this film. There seems to be very little transition. It’s very specific of what it wants to show you about its protagonist’s life. One begins to feel almost too sorry for the protagonist as he loses everyone he loves for no good reason. He’s almost too pathetic of an individual, a caricature of humanity at its lowest point. It is almost too hard to believe a person like Caden actually exists, but they do.

After receiving a MacArthur Grant, Caden finally has a reason to go on. With the immense amount of money he is given, Caden moves to Broadway to direct a diverse ensemble in honor of the mundane and simple lives we live. To create his vision, Caden hires a crew to build a small mockup of New York City for his characters to live. He works well with his actors to develop characters based on his own life and their lives as well. There is not to be a single moment of fiction throughout the production, however honesty takes time. Years pass and not a single performance have been given to an actual audience. This just goes to show how adaptive life is and that it changes every single day. As the years rapidly pass, Caden buries himself deeper into his masterpiece. Populating the cast and crew with doppelgangers, he steadily blurs the line between the world of the play and that of his own deteriorating reality.

After reading the synopsis of Kaufman’s screenplay entitled SYNEDOCHE, NEW YORK on the popular online film database IMDB, I have found the perfect way to describe the film; “By seamlessly blending together subjective point-of-views with traditional narrative structures, writer/director Charlie Kaufman has created a world of superbly unsteady footing. His richly developed cast of characters flutters between moments of warm intimacy and frightful insecurity, creating a script that brings to life all the complex and beautiful nuances of shared life and artistic creation. While I am a writer hired by The Oscar Igloo to have my own opinions, when needed, I could have described this screenplay better. It certainly is one of the most unique screenplays in a while. With its unique originality, it takes part in the tradition of THE TRUMAN SHOW, BEING JOHN MALKOVICH, MEMENTO, ADAPTATION, ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND, and PAN’S LABYRINTH, exactly half of which are written by Kaufman.

Before you venture out to view this particular film, you must be warned that it will be very difficult for the film to find a target audience. The film will leave you hating [particular] women and thinking lowly of men as well. If I were to hazard a guess, the film’s target audience would be his fans from previous Kaufman fare. While this script is far better than his script for George Clooney’s 2002 directorial debut CONFESSIONS OF A DANGEROUS MIND, it does not come close to surpassing the brilliance of his three Oscar-recognized projects.

Without further adieu, I give this script a firm 3 stars out of 5: *** / *****

Oscar Potential

* Most Likely for a Nod

Best Actor – Philip Seymour Hoffman *
Best Supporting Actress – Michelle Williams
Best Supporting Actress – Samantha Morton *
Best Supporting Actress – Hope Davis
Best Original Screenplay – Charlie Kaufman *
Best Film Editing – Robert Frazen
Best Art Direction – Adam Stockhausen, Lydia Marks, & Mark Friedberg *

Click here to read our previous script reviews of "Charlie Wilson's War" and "There Will Be Blood"
 

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