To sum up Synecdoche, New York (tiff) in one word: quoi?

Look, I’m a smart guy, and I like a challenging film as much as anyone, but there are limits. In the beginning the sharp-witted script and Philip Seymour Hoffman’s acting were enough to keep me interested, but for the last hour of the film I felt like I was chasing the actors down a maze in Charlie Kaufman’s mind. I didn’t enjoy that, and I certainly wasn’t intrigued enough to watch it again and figure out what I’m missing.

This film’s gotten really good reviews, and it does deserve some credit for the performances and occasional humour or insight, but I have to wonder how often people are scared to give it a bad rating for fear it’ll look as if they didn’t get it. Whatever. Maybe I’m slow today. Check that: I’m definitely slow today, but I could still keep up with the likes of Being John Malkovich or Adaptation or Eternal Sunshine if I were seeing them for the first time. This was just one onion I couldn’t peel.

On the way out of the theatre the guy in front of me said, “So, that was in English and I still didn’t understand it.”

C+

[tags]tiff, tiff08, synecdoche new york[/tags]