Kaufman is an old hand at this kind of meta-narrative, but without the visual inventiveness and comic edge of collaborators Spike Jonez or Michel Gondry, he seems lost. Synecdoche, New York wants to dig deep into its main character's soul to expose his existential struggles, but Kaufman's postmodern toolbox is ill suited to the task.
There are good reasons why the essential stance of postmodernism is ironic: when self-reflexive effects draw attention to the mechanics of the "text," the audience is distanced from the story's emotional core. Sometimes this distance is the point, and there are other ways to keep us interested -- postmodern masters like Pynchon, Wallace, and Eco dazzle with their humor, erudition, and encyclopedic detail, and even at his most indecipherable, Lynch's fever dreams are rich in evocative contradictions. But moment by moment, the surface of Synecdoche, New York stays drab and bloodless while Kaufman earnestly fishes for feeling in the middle of a surreal slipstream (with John Brion's score as bait).
Sony Pictures Classics
Synecdoche, New York stretches credibility far beyond the breaking point -- and I'm not talking about the permanently burning house, the zeppelins, and the gigantic warehouse sheltering a replica city. I'm wondering about essential questions that get lost in the shuffle: are we truly supposed to believe that Adele's miniatures become the toast of Berlin's art world? Why does Caden let decades pass before he attempts to visit his daughter? Can a man whose idea of innovation is casting a young actor as Willy Loman really win a MacArthur "Genius" grant? Surely, these are all hallucinations that will be explained any moment now?! Shreds of a story speed by in a headless, disconnected rush, and Caden turns into a cipher whose life happens mostly off-screen. As identities shift and years zip by, we're never quite sure what we've missed or when Kaufman will pull the narrative rug out from under us next. After the first twenty minutes, nothing on screen can be trusted.
By the time it sinks in that the fragmented melodramatic sketches are to be taken at face value, Synecdoche, New York has gotten too knotted up in its own contrivances to get a good grip on anybody's heartstrings. How can we possibly feel for an overwrought deathbed reunion between father and daughter when we've never heard the accusations that led to the separation in the first place? For a film that desperately wants us to empathize with its main character's plight, Kaufman's inability to reconcile his overambitious gimmickry with the story's emotional demands is a fatal flaw. Like Caden, whose monstrous play is so outscaled it remains forever unfinished, Kaufman is so preoccupied with producing profundity that he loses sight of any truthful human dimension.
And when it's all said and done, what exactly is it that Synecdoche, New York tells us about death, art, and all the rest? The best I could discern is this: art is difficult, love even more so, heartbreak is everywhere, and everybody has to die. Is any of this news? Face to face with mortality is where art begins, not where it ends: the infinite mysteries of life and love all lie the other way. The best stories tackle their themes obliquely, allowing them to emerge rather than forcing them onto a predetermined structure. Synecdoche, New York perfectly illustrates its own futility, and I suppose in that respect, it finally succeeds.
