Synecdoche, New York and A Christmas Tale (MOD)

Charlie Kaufman's Synecdoche, New York is a self indulgent mess. I spoke to a number of people after the screening and not one of them liked it. In fact, the manager of the theater where I saw it said that not one person who saw it liked it. And yet, I have read some raves on certain film boards and there are a few critics who are gushing over it and saying that it is a masterpiece. It sounds like some people just want to be hip and cool.

Philip Seymour Hoffman plays playwright/director Caden Cotard. Cotard wants to direct a play that touches on the meaning of life (or whatever). In the meantime his artist wife Adele (Catherine Keener) takes off with their daughter to Germany and never returns. Caden turns to others for love. He also thinks that he is dying.
We even get to see his poop in the toilet bowl. What more can I say?

Hoffman, Keener and other wonderful actors such as Tom Noonan, Michelle Williams,
Hope Davis, Samantha Morton, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Emily Watson and Diane Wiest are wasted on this film. Yes, there are a few touching scenes and some scenes that were funny. But overall this film is incoherent. See it at your own risk.

A Christmas Tale will start playing at my local art house next week. But because of time constraints and so many movies coming out I decided to see in on Movies on Demand. It was a good choice because it works well on the small screen.

The film is well directed by Arnaud Desplechin. It focuses on a family who gets together for Christmas. Some of them have not spoken to each other in years. But they are getting together because the matriarch Junon (a luminous Catherine Denueuve) is dying of cancer. The only thing that can save her is a bone marrow transplant. Her affable husband Abel (Jean-Paul Roussilion) has hope that they can find a donor.

The rest of main cast is Anne Consigny (as daughter Elizabeth), Mathieu Amalric (as son Henri), Melvil Poupaud (as son Ivan), Hippolyte Giradot (Elizabeth's husband Claude), Emannuelle Devos (Henri's lover Faunia), Chiara Mastroianni (Ivan's wife Sylvia), and Laurent Cappelluto (cousin Simon). There are also a few child actors playing various children.

I won't tell you much about the plot. I don't want to spoil anything. As I mentioned before, the film is well directed and the writing is good. All of the acting is spot on with. Deneuve is particularly impressive but the real standout here is Amalric. What an interesting face he has.

I liked this film - I think it is quite good. But I wanted to love it but I didn't (I liked Desplechin's last film Kings and Queen better. From all the reviews I had read it would seem like a film that I would love. I think that part of the problem is that the film is two hours and 32 minutes. It should have been cut and tightened up to about two hours. But in any case, it is a good film and I do recommend it.