In theaters
SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK, written and directed by Charlie Kaufman, 124 minutes, rated R.
“Synecdoche, New York” is exactly the sort of movie fans of director Charlie Kaufman should expect, only with the weirdness ratio ramped up to such an extent that it might, at its midpoint, lose a few viewers along the way.
Kaufman is, of course, the mind behind “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” “Adaptation” and “Being John Malkovich,” all sketchy, admirably ambitious films that stood outside the mainstream and created their own insular worlds.
“Synecdoche” is no exception — it exists within its own universe. Since this is Kaufman’s first shot at being a director and he’s working from his own script, the movie offers audiences a more complete picture of what’s going on inside the man’s head.
There is genius in there — and self-indulgence and clutter — and also so many rooms, one has to wonder while watching this movie which room he emerged from each day before he sat down to direct.
As for the movie, it would be great to tell you what it’s about, but it also would be a mistake for anyone to suggest that they’ll know with certainty. They won’t. The movie is so abstract, it works by evasion, so much so that it ultimately leaves audiences only with questions about what is transpiring and then, at the end, what all of it meant.
Here is a movie about double-talk and guessing games fueled by a nonlinear structure and rattled storyline that shakes it so far off track, you either watch in appreciation for the risks Kaufman takes, or with frustration for not being able to fully piece together the narrative. Since the film is about one man’s fractured internal life, the difficulty some will have in connecting the dots likely is the point. Still, the movie is polarizing. Some will love it, others will hate it.
The first half sets the stage for the strangeness that’s to come. In it, we view the crumbling relationship between two artists — Caden (Philip Seymour Hoffman), a local theater director in Schenectady, N.Y., and his wife, Adele (Catherine Keener), an intense painter of microscopic portraits. In order to view her work, one needs illuminated magnifying glasses, which, it should be said, are not needed when it comes to viewing the dysfunction looming large at the core of their marriage. Adele, after all, recently admitted to their marriage counselor (Hope Davis) that she has fantasized that Caden would die so she could start over again.
This hardly is what a spouse wants to hear — certainly not Caden, who at this point begins his gradual collapse. Health issues strike — a fungus grows on his body, he has seizures, there are issues with his heart, eyes and brain. For a show of her work in Berlin, Adele leaves without Caden but takes their 4-year-old daughter with her. Abroad, she becomes a smashing success; at home, Caden feels the cold grasp of loneliness.
To compensate, he begins a major new play that will consume the rest of his life. In this way, the movie recalls Federico Fellini’s “8½,” but it’s even more surreal, with an increasingly disillusioned and aging Caden meeting a host of characters along the way. Kaufman has assembled a terrific supporting cast — Emily Watson, Samantha Morton, Michelle Williams, Dianne Wiest and Tom Noonan among them — all of whom match Hoffman in delivering and sustaining such nuanced, offbeat performances, they keep your interest in a movie that leans hard on them to carry you through.
Grade: B
On DVD
LET THE RIGHT ONE IN, directed by Tomas Alfredson, written by John Ajvide Linkqvist, 116 minutes, rated R. In Swedish with English subtitles.
The comparisons between Catherine Hardwicke’s “Twilight” and Tomas Alfredson’s “Let the Right One In” come so swiftly and easily, it would be an oversight not to compare them for a specific reason — one movie courts an American sensibility driven by box-office greed, the other a foreign sensibility driven by artistry and the quest to tell a story well.
Guess which is the better movie?
“Let the Right One In” is a quiet, more intense vampire thriller from Sweden that features a similar story line, though one that goes deeper and darker than “Twilight” ever could imagine.
It’s the story of a pale, bullied 12-year-old boy named Oskar (Kare Hedebrant), and how his budding relationship with a pale, 12-year-old vampire girl named Eli (Lina Leandersson) leads each to a dangerous precipice that must not be crossed. Unlike Bella from “Twilight,” who would happily die for her studly vamp if it meant spending an eternity marveling at his fright wig and killer cheekbones, Oskar has more substance. He comes to love Eli, but in spite of suffering a cruel life that also includes divorced parents (just as it does with Bella), he doesn’t want to end it.
From the start, there is a wariness between him and Eli that draws you into the movie, which is set in the snowy chills of winter (Hoyte Van Hoytema’s stark cinematography is one of the movie’s chief pleasures). Each child is lonely. Each needs a friend. Given that Oskar is on the cusp of adolescence — and all that entails — his conflicted feelings for Eli are charged with a sexual undercurrent he doesn’t understand.
But she does. Eli might exist within a 12-year-old’s body, but she’s been 12 for some time now. And so, as they grow closer, she becomes his protector, feasting gruesomely when she must (the poor thing never remembers to wipe her bloody mouth), but remaining as true to Oskar as he is to her.
Unlike “Twilight,” suspense and spareness are the motivators here, not violence. That isn’t to suggest that the movie isn’t violent — it is, sometimes wickedly so — but those moments are few. Alfredson understands the power of subtlety. He knows precisely the right moment to shock, but more important, he does so in ways that you’ve never seen on a movie screen.
Grade: A-
WeekinRewind.com is the site for Bangor Daily News film critic Christopher Smith’s blog, DVD giveaways and archive of movie reviews. Smith’s reviews appear Mondays, Fridays and weekends in Lifestyle. He may be reached at Christopher@weekinrewind.com.