a review of 纽约提喻法

I’m an admirer of Charlie Kaufman’s distinctive, surreal, dream-like style, larded with black humor. Having said that, I’ve got a love-hate relationship with the narrative of his films, which has a tendency of deviating into desultory rambling. I loved Anomalisa, I liked I’m Thinking of Ending Things, and I’m ambivalent about Synecdoche, New York. I thought the first half hour was great, making depressing life events digestible with sharp black humor. But the increasingly chaotic, stageplay-centric arty-fartiness started interfering with my enjoyment as the film progressed.