Film Review : Synecdoche, New York

11:19p.m., Thu 19 Feb 2009

Charlie Kaufman is a phenomenon. His career so far is marked by screenplays for "Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind", "Being John Malkovich", "Adaptation" and "Human Nature". Given how esoteric these films are it's impressive that they were even made within the confines of Hollywood. That they have managed to combine arty quirk with a accessibility and have been financial successes, well that's jaw-droppingly admirable.

It's such a shame then, that his directorial debut is a brain-numbing, sprawling, self-indulgent folly of a mess.

Kaufman's chief collaborator in the past, the director Michel Gondry, might have struggled in the dual role of writer-director but, compared to "Synecdoche", "The Science Of Sleep" and "Be Kind, Rewind" look like the wrk of a genius.

Synecdoche tells the story of theatre director X (played by ) as he struggles with his personal relationships and an indulged professional career where his attempts to justify the 'genius' tag is hampered by crippling self-doubt.

The cast is impressive. Along with the undeniably brilliant lead we get Christine Keener, X, X. All put in sterling performances which, ultimately are drowned in the turgidity and lack of pace of the film as a whole.

Early signs are good. There's loads of the brilliant ideas that mark Kaufman's scripts, but the ideas are either dropped or stretched and stretched and stretched until they no longer resemble good ideas.

A lot of the film takes the central idea of Adaptation in that it becomes a play within a play with art imitating life and life imitating art and so on. You'd expect Kaufman to use this idea to his advantage. It quickly loses it's lustre though and the film slows to a plod.

The dreaminess that has become the calling card of Kaufman (and Gondry for that matter) lend the film a charm and at times it feels like the film of some of Paul Auster's darker novels. But Synecdoche is too ambitious and over-reaches itself. There are few surprises and Kaufman dallies too long executing the dull predictability of the story. It feels like watching someone else's boring life in real time, complete with the descriptions of their half-remembered, senseless dream from the night before.