Synecdoche, New York: Critic Reviews

I gave up making heads or tails of Synecdoche, New York, but I did get one message: The compulsion to stand outside of one's life and observe it to this degree isn't the mechanism of art -- it's the structure of psychosis.

To say that Charlie Kaufman's Synecdoche, New York is one of the best films of the year is such a pathetic response to its soaring ambition that I might as well pack it in right now.

The film is either a masterpiece or a massively dysfunctional act of self-indulgence and self-laceration. It has brilliance, either way: surreal, utterly distinctive, witty, gloomy in the manner that his fans will recognise and adore.

A burning, smoking house that people mindlessly inhabit in Synecdoche, New York is an apt metaphor for what is wrong with this confounding, massively ambitious film.

The acting is magnificent, especially Hoffman's anguished, distracted, solipsistic portrayal of Cotard.

Synecdoche, New York comes as close as any film has to explaining the epic indignity of the creative process, how some great works collapse beneath their own abstraction.

As is typical of Kaufman, whether this surrealist, time-skipping noodler is successful depends on what you want to see.

I was struck by the peculiar magic of this film, even moved by it, once I gave up all attempts to understand it as a straightforward linear narrative.

It's hard to say just what kind of movie Charlie Kaufman's directorial debut is, and by the end of it, his film has made a pretty convincing case that it's pointless to try.

It's heartbreaking how rich this failed project is, with enough poetry for several great movies, but not enough push for one.

If you want to show a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, go right ahead, but give that hour all the life you can.

This is a film with the richness of great fiction.

I found it bracing, and genuinely in touch with the sweet chaos and ache of life.

It seems more like an illustration of his script than a full-fledged movie, proving how much he needs a Spike Jonze or a Michel Gondry to realize his surrealistic conceits.

It takes enormous assurance and skill to pull off this kind of meta-story, and Kaufman succeeds; nothing in his direction says 'rookie.'

A surreal exploration of art, love and death, it has the Fellini-esque feel of some lost European cinematic masterpiece that reaches far past the normal boundaries of drama and into the very essence of existence.

It's a strange trip, to be sure, but a worthwhile one for those willing to take it.

Mr. Hoffman is emerging as one of our greatest actors, and he alone makes this film worth seeing.

No matter how bad you think the worst movie ever made ever was, you have not seen Synecdoche, New York. It sinks to the ultimate bottom of the landfill, and the smell threatens to linger from here to infinity.

Kaufman's venturesome dramaturgy and compelling writing scene-by-scene are enough to keep one's curiosity piqued.

It's the first movie this year that demands at least two viewings to absorb its densely textured humor, which makes earlier Kaufman works such as Adaptation and Being John Malkovich look positively straightforward.

Synecdoche is fun to mull over, for a while.