Synedoche New York

What the fuckity fuck was that? Do we need to stage an intervention with Charlie Kaufman? This movie barely made any sense. I absolutely loved Adaptation. and Being John Malkovich and the Kaufman style of adding layers to the story and life is greatly appreciated by me. But Synedoche had one too many layers and my feeble mind just couldn't keep up.

I knew nothing of the movie going in and was surprised by the pacing of the movie at the beginning. I think when Jen from Dawson's Creek says "It's been a year" was meant to shock the viewers because we believed Caden when he said "it's only been a week". I wasn't expecting a movie that takes place over 50 years and I think Kaufman designed it that way. But, I think it would have been better if we would have been let in on the secret a little earlier in the movie.

Why was Caden's girlfriend's house on fire the entire movie? What the fuck was that?

Charlie Kaufman has a staggeringly small list of credits on IMDB. An informed movie watcher would be able to name off nearly all of his credits, we all probably missed the 2 episodes he wrote of Ned and Stacey. Synedoche was his first directing credit and I don't see anything from the movie that would lead me to believe he shouldn't direct another movie, this one just had issues with the story.

But, I do have a proposal for Kaufman. Rewrite and remake mediocre movies from year's past. Give them the full Kaufman treatment of adding layers and breaking down the 4th wall. It's obvious that's what his genius is, let's make the most of it by making previous mediocre movies into Kaufman masterpieces.

By way of example, I would like to propose remaking Big Business. That's right, Big Business with Lily Tomlin and Bette Midler. This would be perfect clay for Kaufman to mold. It was an already somewhat confusing story from the time when Disney was giving orders to Touchstone to bang out doubles instead of going for home runs. The movie was meant to be candy for the moviegoer and certainly hit that mark. But, it could be a wonderfully complex movie with the Kaufman treatment. Each out of place twin (Midler in the city, Tomlin in the country) could have parallel lives in their rightful place but not living the life the in place twin is having. So instead of 4 experiences lived by the pair of twins, you could have 8 experiences lived by the pair of twins. I'm not deranged enough to make this work, only Kaufman could. I would love to see Big Business attain a Kaufman complexity, wouldn't you?

After Big Business, we could do any number of movies of that ilk like The Secret of My Success, Pretty in Pink, Vice Versa, Drop Dead Fred and Class. These could all be blockbusters because everyone's seen them, moderately enjoyed them and would like to see them shaken up, rearranged and thrown back up on the screen.

Until that happens, I don't if Kaufman can reach enough of an audience to keep getting work.