Synecdoche, New York (2008)

Essential Viewing

USA

Feature Film

Writer/Director: Charlie Kaufman

Cinematographer: Fred Elmes

Composer: Jon Brion

Cast: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Samantha Morton, Catherine Keener, Michelle Williams, Emily Watson, Tom Noonan, Dianne Wiest, Hope Davis, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Robin Weigert

Brilliant screenwriter Kaufman’s haunting, hugely ambitious directorial debut – an enigmatic, nightmare-like portrait of an emotionally and physically ailing playwright, following his attempts to put on a painfully autobiographical play in a massive warehouse with a cast of thousands – proves to be a rather bleak yet sombrely funny and strangely moving film about the nature of existence, which boasts (unsurprisingly, considering its stellar cast) several excellent performances. Iain.Stott