Almost 18 months ago LA Times writer Jay Fernandez suggested, after reading the script for Charlie Kaufman’s new film Synecdoche, New York, that it is “questionable whether cinema is even capable of handling the thematic, tonal and narrative weight of a story this ambitious”.
The film ostensibly tells the mid-life story of a theatre director who, for his latest project, constructs a facsimile of New York inside a warehouse. It’s also a relationship parable and is bound to be steeped in logic puzzles wrapped up inside brain teasers. The official publicity is wonderfully vivid:
By seamlessly blending together subjective points-of-view with traditional narrative structures, writer/director Charlie Kaufman has created a world of superbly unsteady footing. His richly developed cast of characters flutter between moments of warm intimacy and frightful insecurity, creating a script that brings to life all the complex and beautiful nuances of shared life and artistic creation.
Kaufman, the reclusive, twisted mind behind Being John Malkovich, Adaptation and the brilliant Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind, will direct for the first time in his career, with #5 Reason to Love New York Philip Seymour Hoffman in the lead role. Michelle Williams, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Emily Watson, Hope Davis, Samantha Morton, Dianne Wiest and Catherine Keener (with whom Hoffman worked on Capote) round out the core cast.
