Weird - but is it wonderful?

May 15 2009 by Aranda Garrard, The Journal

RELEASED today at the Tyneside Cinema, Newcastle, is the curiously titled Synedoche, New York (certificate 15).

It is the directorial debut of Charlie Kaufman who has been something of an art house darling.

He won a Bafta and an Oscar nomination as writer of Being John Malkovich and, in 2004, landed the best original screenplay Oscar with Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Kate Winslet and John Carrey).

This is an off-beat comedy about a beleaguered theatre director who is pushed to breaking point by the effort of realising his unconventional production of the Arthur Miller play, Death Of A Salesman.

Reality quickly fragments as painter Adele Cotard (played by Catherine Keener) calls for time out from her marriage to director Caden (Philip Seymour Hoffman).

She decides to head for Germany with their four-year-old daughter, Olive (Sadie Goldstein), to give the relationship a little breathing space.

Caden then falls under the spell of box-office vamp Hazel (Samantha Morton) and wins a grant to stage a theatrical experience like no other.

So he distils his own life on stage, hiring Hazel as his assistant and casting actress Claire (Michelle Williams) to play Hazel. Marriage beckons and Caden re-casts actress Tammy (Emily Watson) as Hazel.

Layers of illusion and fantasy overlap until Caden’s entire world threatens to collapse around him.

The result is a typically surreal piece of navel-gazing from Kaufman.

Fans of his earlier work won’t be disappointed. They will probably consider it weird but wonderful; others might just dismiss it as plain weird.

The film, showing at the Tyneside from today, comes in at 123 minutes. Tyneside box office: 0845 217-9909 or www.tynesidecinema.co.uk