Film

We could worry about Charlie Kaufman, whose new nesting doll of a screenplay, the vastly echoing Synecdoche, New York, scrapes the far edge of David Foster Wallace. But that’s not necessary. As with Being John Malkovich and Adaptation, Kaufman’s latest (which he also directs, haltingly) has its tenterhooks planted in the warm, fuzzy heart of comic neuroticism. Caden (Hoffman), a shy, shlubby theater director, might be concerned about the color of his stool; his artist wife, Adele (Keener), is leaving him, and his young daughter is flipping out in the backseat over the concept of veins—but it’s all essentially a picture of buzzy, NPR-listening domesticity.

Even as the little family unravels, tipping vertiginously into future shock—Synecdoche, New York should properly be called science fiction—Kaufman has romantic ideas to guide him. Adele becomes an art star in Germany, and Caden shields himself with surrogate actors in a massive theater project while the world outside seems to fall into apocalypse. There’s the Lonely One That Got Away (Morton, excellent), the Predatory Therapist (Davis, one-note) and the Fawning Trophy Blond (Williams, unpersuasive); the movie deals in types, not real people. It’s a writer’s film, and Kaufman doesn’t have the chops to turn his ironies into affecting drama. (Also, someone should have warned him about that lousy title.) But the sheer scope of his conception is breathtaking and commendable. Anyone who casts the serene Wiest as the ultimate puppet master deserves another shot.