Review of Synecdoche, New York (2008) by Fredy A — 14 Jan 2010

You can tell from my choices of favorite movies I'm a Kaufman fan. Before Synecdoche, there was not a way you could tell the perfect Kaufman movie. They each had their own thing. But Synecdoche summarized everything we love about Kaufman. Each one of his movies have something of them in Synecdoche, but it still brings a lot. So basically, Synecdoche is the best of The Kauf, and then some more. It seems familiar with Being John Malkovich that both start with an unhappy marriage and unrequited love at work. You expect it to end in a way, but it screws with you and twists in uncountable ways. Both are similar to a dream. Also, in both you feel like a lot of time has gone by, things are not the same. it was really difficult for me to decide which one of those I liked the most, but Synecdoche won, because it also contains elements from the other movies and because the storyline is wider, in BJM it takes eight months the main plot, only with years in advance for the epilogue. In Synecdoche 40 years go by.

The common thing with Adaptation is primarily the metaphysical thing. In Adaptation, we watch as Charlie lives a scene and then writes it. In Synecdoche, those scenes are not simply written, they are represented by other actors. And these actors are represented by others. It's like the poster of Memento. It never ends.

The common things with ESOTSM are not much, but I find the music (not the main themes, the other one) using the same purpose, a monotony-like subject.

Well, yeah, the plot. It was described as something along the lines of "a playwright deals with women in his life and builds a life-size replica of New York City". But it's not enough. However, it's better for you to enjoy the movie just like Caden, not knowing what comes next.

Also, I love the title. In my country is was retitled as "Nueva York en Escena", which is spanish for "New York in Scene", which sounds good, but I prefer the original better. It's like "you don't know what does synecdoche mean? search a dictionary" Good pun, by the way.