The directorial debut from acclaimed screenwriter Charlie Kaufman (Being John Malkovich, Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind) is a zany, irreverent reverie that is at times brilliant, especially when setting up the fantasy world the characters inhabit, but by the end a tad infuriating and often incomprehensible.
Despite it’s many faults it remains a highly ambitious, winning film that will – like Donnie Darko – have fans arguing over what it all exactly means for years to come. Essentially Kaufman has tried to make a movie in which the protagonist tries to decipher what the meaning of life is.
Philip Seymour Hoffman plays Caden Cotard, a theatre director living in Schnectady, upper state New York, who is in the process of preparing a new work in 2005 when his wife Adele (Catherine Keener) decides to leave him and move to Berlin with their daughter. A bathroom accident results in Cotard cutting his head open and from that moment on Cotard loses touch with reality.
Time jumps at bizarre unexplainable rates, events that seem to be happening on the day are revealed by sly uses of calendars to be taking place, weeks, months or even years afterwards. Characters age at different rates. His daughter becomes an adult (Robin Weigart) in seemingly no time at all. His psychiatrist (Hope Davis) is writing a book about Caden and their relationship begins and ends on the pages of her books. Other characters do quirky unbelievable things. A young woman Hazel (Samantha Morton) infatuated with Caden moves into a house that is constantly in the state of burning down. The action inexplicably jumps to 2009 when the now single theatre director is awarded a MacArthur genius grant and decides to put on the most magnificent theatre play ever staged.
Kaufman is occupied by themes that have appeared in his other scripts: the vagaries of memory (Eternal Sunshine), the struggle of an artist (Adaptation), and the desire to inhabit another life (Being John Malkovich). Like all Kaufman scripts, the ideas behind the action are stunning; he’s a master at setting up situations that always seem to run into cul-de-sacs and meet unsatisfactory ends.
After a brilliant introduction to the world, the film becomes an increasingly bizarre and wacky collection of scenes as Caden decides to put his own life on-stage, strangely employ an actor (Tom Noonan) who shares none of his physical characteristics and a near-lookalike (Emily Watson) to play Hazel.
It’s at this point that any attempts to follow the plot become futile on a single viewing. Kaufman throws everything into this picture including the kitchen sink. It’s so ambitious and different that it has to be admired. Towards the end of the film it’s stated that you have to go back to the beginning to understand what’s happening and the film starts with a reference to British playwright Harold Pinter. As such Kaufman’s film is best understood as a tribute to the memory plays with which Pinter made his name. But any greater conclusions will only come after we’ve seen it a few more times.
