Charlie Kaufman: Ranking All 8 Films Worst To Best

Charlie Kaufman's first time behind the camera as well as being the screenwriter yields particularly bizarre results, Philip Seymour Hoffman stars as a theatre director Caden Cotard, who suffers from several mysterious illnesses and ailments that cannot be explained.

After he is given a sizable grant, Caden embarks on creating a massive play that mimics his own life and actions. He casts actors as himself and people he knows in a replica of New York. As he becomes more disillusioned by his own reality and questioning whether he exists or not, the scale grows as he begins to cast actors playing the crew and other variations of himself.

Synecdoche, New York is structured like a fever dream and a large amount of the narrative cannot be explained in simple terms. It is a rather abstract film, centred on provoking emotion out of the audience than anything else. Hoffman is committed to the peculiar Caden and watching him lose touch with what is real can be almost tragic.

The film is as existential as it gets and watching the play get more grand and expansive just to justify to its director that he does exist can be profoundly sad. At the very least, Synecdoche, New York will leave you marvelling at Kaufman's ambition.