8) Synecdoche, New York
Most people who are into the work of Charlie Kaufman have at some point felt the desire to climb into his brain the way his characters climbed into John Malkovich’s brain in Being John Malkovich. The guy’s mind works in ways that are strange and amazing. Synecdoche, New York gave new meaning to the term “meta,” which I don’t think was even being used in pop culture circles back in the ancient history period that was 2008. It makes Community look like a jumbled high school play.
It’s also similar to another Kaufman script, 2002’s Adaptation, in the way it frames its story within a story. But again, this movie is like Adaptation on meth, diving deeper and deeper down the wormhole until both the audience and the characters lose track of what’s real and which person’s an actor and which one’s an actor playing an actor playing an actor playing a real person. There’s a lot of psychological motifs that run throughout the movie and Jungian references and all that intellectual stuff that can lead you to reading up far more about a movie than you’d ever wish to. But it’s also extremely funny in its implementation of these ideas and such an enjoyable watch that repeat viewings don’t seem like as daunting a prospect as it would for a graver, less humorous movie.
