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From Charlie Kaufman, comes a visual and philosophic adventure, SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK. As he did with his groundbreaking scripts for "Being John Malkovich", "Adaptation", and "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind", Kaufman twists and subverts form and language as he delves into the mind of a man who, obsessed with his own mortality, sets out to construct a massive artistic enterprise that could give some meaning to his life.
Theater director Caden Cotard (Hoffman) is mounting a new play. His life catering to suburban blue-hairs at the local regional theater in Schenectady, New York is looking bleak. His wife Adele (Keener) has left him to pursue her painting in Berlin, taking their young daughter Olive (Goldstein) with her. His therapist, Madeleine Gravis (Davis), is better at plugging her best-seller than she is at counseling him. A new relationship with the alluringly candid Hazel (Morton) has prematurely run aground. And a mysterious condition is systematically shutting down each of his autonomic functions, one by one.
Worried about the transience of his life, he leaves his home behind. He gathers an ensemble cast into a warehouse in New York City, hoping to create a work of brutal honesty. He directs them in a celebration of the mundane, instructing each to live out their constructed lives in a growing mockup of the city outside. The years rapidly fold into each other, and Caden buries himself deeper into his masterpiece, but the textured tangle of real and theatrical relationships blurs the line between the world of the play and that of Caden's own deteriorating reality.
Original Release
10/24/2008
US Release
10/24/2008
Links
Cast
Name | Character |
---|
Philip Seymour Hoffman | Caden Cotard |
Catherine Keener | Adele Lack |
Sadie Goldstein | Olive (4 years old) |
Tom Noonan | Sammy Barnathan |
Peter Friedman | Emergency Room Doctor |
Charles Techman | Like Clockwork Patient |
Josh Pais | Ophthalmologist |
Daniel London | Tom |
Robert Seay | David |
Michelle Williams | Claire Keen |
Directors
Writers
Cast
Name | Character |
---|
Philip Seymour Hoffman | Caden Cotard |
Catherine Keener | Adele Lack |
Sadie Goldstein | Olive (4 years old) |
Tom Noonan | Sammy Barnathan |
Peter Friedman | Emergency Room Doctor |
Charles Techman | Like Clockwork Patient |
Josh Pais | Ophthalmologist |
Daniel London | Tom |
Robert Seay | David |
Michelle Williams | Claire Keen |
Stephen Adly Guirgis | Davis |
Samantha Morton | Hazel |
Hope Davis | Madeleine Gravis |
Frank Girardeau | Plumber |
Jennifer Jason Leigh | Maria |
Amy Wright | Burning House Realtor |
Paul Sparks | Derek |
Jerry Adler | Caden's Father |
Lynn Cohen | Caden's Mother |
Deirdre O'Connell | Ellen's Mother |
Producers
Name | Role |
---|
Ray Angelic | Executive Producer |
William Horberg | Executive Producer |
Bruce Toll | Executive Producer |
Charlie Kaufman | Producer |
Anthony Bregman | Producer |
Spike Jonze | Producer |
Sidney Kimmel | Producer |