Synecdoche, New York by Charlie Kaufman

Content warnings: death and sexual abuse

In brief, without spoilers: Synecdoche, New York is a film about getting old and never becoming the person you want to be. It's a film that paints an incredibly depressing portrait of an old white man, probably a deep-closeted transwoman, who's wrapped up in right-wing anxieties, who feels powerless, and is terrified of losing the people he loves. It's pretty confusing at times, and took me a few watches to fully get. It's really disgusting in an honest, human way. I don't think I'd recommend it to most people but I do think it's a really good movie.

For a long time, Synecdoche, New York has been what I'd call my favourite film. Having watched it three times now, I'm less convinced that's true, but it's very clear to me why I felt that way in the past.

Synecdoche, New York is a long, confusing film that follows an old, sick man named Caden. Caden is a death-obsessed theatre director whose body is failing him. Having spent his life to that point directing other people's stories on the stage, trying to re-imagine them in his own way, the story follows his attempt to create a play that encapsulates the things he truly cares about, and that'd give him an enduring legacy. Over the course of the movie, we see the scope of the play spiral out of control as Caden tries to capture the lives and stories of everyone who lives in Schenectady, New York, including the play itself.

As I watched the movie with someone else for the first time I honestly felt kind of embarrassed, not the least because the film is pretty disgusting at times (as human bodies are) but also because either Caden or the film is extremely fixated on a lot of very right-wing anxieties. You see something like this in Kaufman's earlier film Being John Malkovich where Craig's spouse Lotte realizes he's a transgender man after embodying John Malkovich for the first time. At first, neither Craig nor film itself take Lotte seriously for wanting to be a man, but over the course of the film, you get the sense that Craig comes out on bottom whereas Lotte gets everything he wants.

Synecdoche, New York seems to have something similar going on. It's a very transgender film. Adele, Caden's first wife takes their daughter to Germany where she leads a much happier, much more gay and polyamourous life as a famous artist. Over the course of the film, Caden's relationship to his first divorce changes, going from resentment to longing, as he himself tries to embody his first wife's cleaning lady and lover in the play.

This read is complicated by the fact that Caden's daughter is literally being groomed and abused by one of her new mothers. The film flips between implying this is Caden projecting his anxieties, and it being real, but it does appear to be real. This is part of what I mean when I say the film is wrapped up in right-wing anxiety. It was a creative choice made to make Caden's daughter the victim of a gay, German, polyamourous sex cult. While I think it still makes sense in the context of a film about an obviously deep-closeted old transwoman's anxiety about powerlessness and losing the people she cares about, I don't think it was handled super well, and that's probably my biggest criticism.

The other, related issue with the film (while I wouldn't exactly call it a criticism) is that if you are not an aging man, or a transwoman, I don't know if this film will have anything to say to you. It doesn't exactly pass the Bechdel test, and pretty much every named woman in the film who isn't a child is trying to have sex with Caden at some point. I think it works and makes sense within the context of the film, but it does underline the fact that the film seems to be speaking very directly to aging men and transwomen.

And I think ultimately that's why the film meant so much to me. There have been many points over the course of my own life where I had to decide if I should come out or stay in the closet. One day, it occurred to me that if I didn't come out, I'd end up a lot like Caden at the end of my own life, and that terrified me more than the fear of reprisal. I was very lucky to have people in my life who supported me, but I have to think that there's a lot of people like Caden in the world who'll die wondering.

Having grown a little older since I last watched it, I'm now second-guessing whether or not I can call it my favourite movie because I don't think it speaks to me the way it used to. I suppose that's probably a good thing.