Synecdoche, New York
Sony Pictures Classics | Release Date: October 24, 2008 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
67
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 34 Critic Reviews
Positive:
21
Mixed:
11
Negative:
2
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Austin ChronicleMarjorie Baumgarten
Synecdoche is the kind of movie that rewards repeated viewings. But sometimes, as Van Morrison sings, it's just best to "sail into the mystic." Read full review
100
EmpireAndrew Male
Astonishing. Kaufman has surpassed himself with a film that will delight and confound. You will want to see it again. And again. Read full review
100
The New York TimesManohla Dargis
To say that Charlie Kaufman's Synecdoche, New York is one of the best films of the year or even one closest to my heart is such a pathetic response to its soaring ambition that I might as well pack it in right now. Read full review
100
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
I think you have to see Charlie Kaufman's Synecdoche, New York twice. I watched it the first time and knew it was a great film and that I had not mastered it. The second time because I needed to. The third time because I will want to. Read full review
100
Seattle Post-IntelligencerTravis Nichols
Although obviously a stretched and lightly drawn caricature -- the cerebral writer is obsessed with his work, has metaphorical skin problems, can't have sex without weeping, etc. -- Cotard is real. Or as real a representation of an artist as we're likely to get in this biopic age. Read full review
91
Portland OregonianShawn Levy
In effect, Caden's life passes before his eyes while he is living it. And Kaufman shares this effect with us through a strange process he achieves with invisible strings; it's a knockout. Read full review
90
TimeRichard Corliss
No film with an ambition this large, and achievement this impressive, can be anything but exhilarating, a vital affirmation of the creative process. Read full review
88
New York PostLou Lumenick
It's got more imagination than half a dozen movies combined; there's nothing else out there like this, and to me that's a very good thing. Read full review
88
PremiereEmily Rems
At turns as neurotic and nebbishy as any Woody Allen flick, as creepy and disorienting as your favorite "Twilight Zone" episode, and as steeped in magical realism as the most moving Márquez novel, Synecdoche may not be the feel-good date movie of the year. But for viewers up for the challenge, it may be the film most likely to stick with you. Read full review
88
Chicago TribuneMichael Phillips
As a director, Kaufman isn't yet his own best salesman. He's not enough of a visual stylist to sell his script's most challenging conceits. But the cast rises to a very strange and rich occasion. Read full review
88
Boston GlobeWesley Morris
I can't pretend to know fully what Charlie Kaufman is up to in Synecdoche, New York, with all the doubled characters, dreamy reenactments, comical minutiae, and personal unhappiness. But I got a great deal of pleasure out of watching him mount his fantasia about an artist suffering not simply for his art, but because of it. Read full review
83
The A.V. ClubScott Tobias
For this master of mindfuckery, Synecdoche, New York probably qualifies as a magnum opus, since it essentially multiplies "Adaptation" by an exponential factor and thus grows into a snarling, ungainly beast of self-reflexive absurdities. Read full review
80
NPRBob Mondello
Synecdoche, New York is one heck of a head-trip. Read full review
75
Miami HeraldRene Rodriguez
You have never seen a movie quite like this one. Read full review
70
Village VoiceScott Foundas
Like most of Kaufman's work as a writer, Synecdoche, New York is a head trip that time and again returns to a place of real human emotion--in this case, to the idea that no matter how brilliant we may be or think we are, we're all looking for a little guidance (or, yes, direction) in life. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterRay Bennett
Will mesmerize some and mystify others, while many will be bored silly. It's not a dream, Kaufman says, but it has a dreamlike quality, and those won over by its otherworldly jigsaw puzzle of duplicated characters, multiple environments and shifting time frames will dissect it endlessly. Read full review
70
VarietyTodd McCarthy
A wildly ambitious and gravely serious contemplation of life, love, art, human decay and death, the film bears Kaufman’s scripting fingerprints in its structural trickery and multiplane storytelling. Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesCarina Chocano
Sprawling, awe-inspiring, heartbreaking, frustrating, hard-to-follow and achingly, achingly sad movie. Read full review
70
Film ThreatMariko McDonald
It is a sprawling, ambitious and very long look at so many things, it's almost a miracle he was able to wrap it up in just two hours. And yet, for a film that is principally about death, the conclusion is surprisingly life-affirming, especially coming from Kaufman. Read full review
63
Rolling StonePeter Travers
Philip Seymour Hoffman creates a mesmerizing portrait of the artist as a young, old and middle-aged man. Read full review
63
Philadelphia InquirerCarrie Rickey
In Synecdoche, Kaufman the screenwriter is not well-served by Kaufman the filmmaker. As a director, his propensity for heavyosity leadens rather than leavens this affair. Read full review
60
New York Daily NewsJoe Neumaier
Hoffman, Morton and Jon Brion's aching score somehow capture the all-too-human need to get things right. If you're in a certain frame of mind, those moments make up for all the stagecraft. Read full review
50
Baltimore SunMichael Sragow
As the movie rambles along with its own brand of quasi-magical surrealism, the links to real experience grow scarcer and more frayed. Read full review
50
Charlotte ObserverLawrence Toppman
Watching the film is also wearying, like assembling a puzzle from a box into which a sadist continually pours new pieces. I was still processing details when the abrupt ending snatched the puzzle away. Read full review
50
SalonStephanie Zacharek
Strives to be a work of greatness. But Kaufman's overarching vision is a lot less interesting than the small insights he gathers along the way. This is what happens when life imitates art, and blows it. Read full review
50
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
Just because a movie is ambitious and challenging doesn't mean it can't also be tedious and at times unbearable. Read full review
50
SlateDana Stevens
The problem is that the movie's worldview, in the end, isn't expansive enough to justify the (quite literal) stage it takes place on. Read full review
50
The New YorkerAnthony Lane
There has long been a strain of sorry lassitude in Kaufman's work, and here it sickens into the morbid. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
The temptation to be emphatic about Synecdoche, New York is overwhelming but should be resisted, because the movie really is a mixed bag. A particularly odd mix. Read full review
50
Chicago ReaderJonathan Rosenbaum
It seems more like an illustration of his (Kaufman) script than a full-fledged movie, proving how much he needs a Spike Jonze or a Michel Gondry to realize his surrealistic conceits. Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Rick Groen
Here, there's not much that's funny, there's too much that's too clever by half, and there's not a damn thing that's lively - this is a film about Life whose sin is its lifelessness. Read full review
40
New York Magazine (Vulture)David Edelstein
It's heartbreaking how rich this failed project is, with enough poetry for several great movies, but not enough push for one. Read full review
38
USA TodayClaudia Puig
The film disappoints terribly, too. The directorial debut of such an imaginative and clever screenwriter was a highly anticipated event. His "Being John Malkovich" and "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" are two of the most innovative and intriguing movies of the past decade. Synecdoche is one of the most maddening. Read full review
33
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
I gave up making heads or tails of Synecdoche, New York, but I did get one message: The compulsion to stand outside of one's life and observe it to THIS degree isn't the mechanism of art -- it's the structure of psychosis. Read full review
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