By Callum MacKenzie
Staff Writer

Synecdoche, New York  is best described as the sort of movie that you just have to see; a short review in a newspaper simply can’t begin to describe the characters and events that occur in Charlie Kaufman’s new film, which is now playing in Kendall Square. The film concerns Caden Cotard (Phillip Seymour Hoffman), a theater director who, after winning a MacArthur “genius grant”, undertakes a play that concerns no less than the entirety of human life, and which takes place in a warehouse containing a full scale replica of New York City.

Kaufman, who is best known as the screenwriter of the films Being John Malkovich, Adaptation and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, both wrote and directed Synecdoche; and if only for that reason, it feels like his most personal work to date. While Kaufman’s other films, directed by Spike Jonze and Michel Gondry, feature a healthy amount of visual trickery and seem a bit too clever for their own good, Synecdoche is relatively simple in its complexity – don’t worry, I am aware that this is an oxymoron – in that the film is Caden Cotard’s life after a certain point, no more and no less.

Caden’s wife Adele (Catherine Keener), leaves him with his daughter and moves to Berlin; after briefly dating the love of his life, Hazel (Samantha Morton), he marries Claire (Michelle Williams), who had been in an earlier production of his. After winning his MacArthur grant, he announces to his therapist (Hope Davis) that he wants to create something “raw” and “true,” at which point he sets out to create his full scale replica humanity in New York in the present.

That’s the plot, but there’s so much more going on; Caden hires Sammy (Tom Noonan) to play him, hires Tammy (Emily Watson) to play Hazel, and for most of the production has Claire play herself. By the end of the film, there are so many different Cadens and Hazels that it is almost impossible to tell them apart. People die, and actors are hired to play the actors.

Synecdoche, New York is not the sort of film that will take in a large amount of box office or even win very many awards. It’s simply too opaque and complex for either of those things. That said, it is the sort of film that people will still be talking about in ten or twenty years for the same reasons that it won’t be a box office smash in the present.