Daily Motion is being a bitch, but we’ve got a bunch of scenes and clips from Charlie Kaufman’s “Synecdoche, New York,” there and on YouTube. The film comes out this Friday, October 24 via Sony Pictures Classics. It’s a film that’s really dividing people and we’re kind of curious how audiences and critics respond to it. It could be a hard road, but people do love Kaufman. Any other director would probably get roasted for this though, that’s for sure. It’s currently sitting at a 67% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, but more reviews will surely come in later in the week and change that number. We were kind of dazzled by the film’s headiness and ambition initially, but in the end, it’s somber melancholy and abstruse second half didn’t resonate with us as much as we’d hoped and we’ve honestly forgotten about the film a little bit.
David Edelstein of New York mag has a good balanced view when he says, “It’s heartbreaking how rich this failed project is, with enough poetry for several great movies, but not enough push for one.” That’s a pretty good way of describing the pros and cons of the film. It’s kind of a wonderful mess full of hilarious moments and incredibly sad ones too.
Most of these scenes center on the absurd and sad nature of the relationship between Philip Seymour Hoffman’s character and his wife, played by Catherine Keener, though the second clip illustrates how bleak and depressing the film can be in moments. Synopsis:
A wild-eyed theater director (Philip Seymour Hoffman) attempts to build a life-sized replica of New York City in preparation for an ambitious play in the feature directorial debut of notoriously quirky screenwriter Charlie Kaufman (“Being John Malkovich,” “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”). Catherine Keener, Michelle Williams, and Emily Watson co-star in a tale of one man’s quest to stage the ultimate love letter to the Big Apple.