Monkey Movie Review

This is possibly the most disturbingly maddeningly brilliant film I have ever seen:

I'll have to see it again because I'm sure there were lots of things I missed or didn't get on first viewing and I'll probably end up buying it eventually. Yeah, I liked it that much.

Oh don't get me wrong though, it's not for everybody. If Being John Malkovich was too 'out there' for you, or if you didn't like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and if The Science of Sleep left you flummoxed then Synecdoche New York is not a film you need to be watching. But if you like challenging films, films with a waaaaaay off beat sense of humor, and films that make an impression on you days after seeing them, then by all means watch this film.

Phillip Seymour Hoffman turns in his usual good work in this film, as does Catherine Keener, Michelle Williams, and Diane Weist. But the real stand outs are Hope Davis, Tom Noonan as the non actor hired to play Phillip Seymour Hoffman's character in the play and Samantha Morton as Hoffman's on and off love interest. After her small but winning cameo in this film I'm almost ready to forgive Jennifer Jason Leigh for making Georgia, almost but not quite. I still hate that movie.

The two funniest things in this film to me were Mabel's smouldering house and Hoffman's daughter's death bed scene. I'm getting cracked up just thinking about them now as I write this.

I'm ready to go ahead and name Charlie Kaufman a national treasure for writing and directing this film. He's got to be the single most creative screenwriter working in film today and based on his direction of this movie, he may be getting ready to give Terry Gilliam and Michel Gondry a run for their title of most creative film directors working today.

I can't believe how much I love this film. It's wonderfully strange and strangely wonderful.