Caden Cotard (Philip Seymour Hoffman) is a successful theatre director. After an acclaimed production of Death of a Salesman, he receives a seemingly limitless bursary, which he puts towards a lavish production in an endless warehouse facility in New York. The production? His life, including life-size sets. As he puts it, "something true, something tough". As time goes by, he casts himself, his now estranged wife and daughter, his production assistant, who then go on to cast further versions of themselves. The sets grow bigger and the lines between life, performance and dreams become blurred.
*****
It is impossible to categorise or pigeon-hole this film, other than to say it is from the mind of Charlie Kaufman, acclaimed writer of Being John Malkovich, Adaptation and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and directing here for the first time. As always, Kaufman has no interest in cliche, predictability or convention, crafting instead a genuinely unique piece of work that is confusing, rewarding, moving, affecting and human. In different hands, we might have subtitles or subtle colour-coding to mark the passing of the years or the shift between "real life" and "performance". Instead, we have nothing more to go on than our own concentration and the gradual receding of Cotard's hairline. We find ourselves watching a scene, suddenly realising that we must be a decade or more on from the last scene and yet the experience is not frustrating or disconcerting. As you immerse yourself in the film, you simply lose yourself in the experience of overlapping realities and subjectivity.
As mentioned in the synopsis, Cotard casts someone as him in the play of his life, but that person then starts to play the role of a director, casting someone else for him to direct. Cotard's wife leaves him, taking their daughter to Germany and all of a sudden the daughter is grown up. Cotard's new partner, who goes from manning the box office to being his production and casting assistant, buys a house that is on fire, though we are never told why. Cotard begins a romance with the actress cast as his production assistant, although she also has eyes for the actor cast as Cotard. If this all sounds hopelessly confusing (and I have probably got some of it wrong, which won't help) then it is and it isn't. It can at times be difficult to keep track, but that is sort of the point. We are supposed to be unsure as to what is real and what is not, as Cotard himself takes a role in the play, as a cleaning lady.
In the end, this is a film to be seen and experienced rather than explained. Just as it is hard to explain the effect of watching Nolan's back to front Memento, so is it hard to explain the effect of Synecdoche, New York. It is like dreaming, but also like experiencing the harshness of real life. It is melancholy, but so touching and affecting. Hoffman's performance, like every other performance in the film, is beyond over-praise. He is simply sensational. After breath-taking performances in Happiness, Boogie Nights and Magnolia, Hoffman has exceeded even his own peerless standards. How he did not even get nominated for an Oscar is beyond me. He should have scooped up every award going.
I have only seen the film once and will need to see it again, perhaps a few times. It is superb, one of the best of the last few years. As Cotard himself says, Kauffman has crafted "something tough, something true".
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