Review of Synecdoche, New York (2008) by Newt C — 21 Feb 2011

This is a prime example of why some writers NEED a director to filter out their self-indulgent, neurotic insanity. Somewhere buried in the heart of this colossus of an arthouse jerkoff is a point about human connection and its relation to the arts, but you can barely see it past the metafictional histrionics and the quirk-for-quirk's sake ridiculousness in which Kaufman loves to engage.

Read any of his script drafts from BEFORE their respective directors got to them and wisely cut away the weeds that would have choked those movies to death and you'll see what I mean. There are events that occur in this film that come from nothing and go nowhere.

Characters walk in and walk out and leave the audience wondering why. Some might argue that this is Kaufman's point, that he's created the feeling of randomness and disjointed time and strangeness that makes up life.

That may be ambitious, as some have claimed (including the generally trustworthy Roger Ebert), but it doesn't feel like storytelling to me. It feels like jerking off. Which is fine, but I'd rather do that myself, in my home, without the company of a dozen or more depressive types mumbling through scene after scene of nothing for 2+ hours.