Synecdoche, New York

Charlie Kaufman’s legendary screenplays for Being John Malkovich and Adaptation dealt with the travails of an insecure, self-defined genius. They also hinted at the egotism of their creator, whose central characters were obvious stand-ins for the writer himself.

His past scripts implied a unique, self-important mind, and Kaufman’s directorial debut Synecdoche, New York seals the deal. It’s Kaufman on Kaufman, and the result is a brilliant, narcissistic portrait of an artist in decline.

Synecdoche features Philip Seymour Hoffman in another schlumpy role as Caden Cotard, a hypochondriac playwright whose increasing illnesses may or may not be legit.

Caden’s true sickness is his impossible devotion to women. At the outset, he fails to meet the expectations of his icy wife Adele (Catherine Keener, playing a middle-aged version of her character from Malkovich), who’s more interested in getting stoned with her friend Maria (Jennifer Jason Leigh) than she is attending his premieres.

It’s clear that Caden can’t possibly keep her, and soon after she leaves, his sickness overwhelms him – even as he wins a MacArthur Genius Grant – and in his grief he commits to writing a play that will boil human tragedy down to its essence.

As the play’s creation drags on, Caden wanders from relationship to relationship, always winding up more in love with the women of his past than with his current flames. Meanwhile, he becomes more and more unhinged, his life and his art becoming fused to the point of insanity.

Synecdoche presents its story from Caden’s viewpoint, and the result is a series of intricate, interlocking absurdities – a celluloid Escher painting. The film’s references to Dostoyevsky and Kafka are no joke, and they aren’t simply homage; Kaufman wants to be them.

Of course, greatness is a slippery thing, and every time it’s in the movie’s sights, Kaufman’s self-importance allows it to escape: The movie’s foremost impression is that it’s damned hard to be as clever as Charlie Kaufman.

But clever he is, and Synecdoche is often breathtaking. It encroaches on, and eventually overtakes, Woody Allen’s thematic turf. He tackles infidelity, mortality and the ulterior motives of artists – all Allen staples, but unlike Allen, Kaufman doesn’t filter them through the lens of other movies.

Unfortunately, Synecdoche also proves that Kaufman’s last screenplay, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, his most user-friendly work, was an anomaly. I’m sure he now considers it juvenilia, but it was, for all its indulgences, his best film and a wonderful romance that didn’t revolve solely around a brooding Kaufman substitute.

Despite its failings, Synecdoche is still one hell of a fever dream. It’s a dizzying step down from Sunshine, and it doesn’t care what its audience thinks, but it’s also some kind of surreal tour de force – as singular a vision as the movies have seen all year.

Rating: ****