this post was submitted on 10 Dec 2025
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I feel this way about Synecdoche, New York, with the caveat that I understand it but just think it's hot garbage.
I recently watched it for the first time and loved it. The disjointed flow of it worked for me as a mechanism to immerse in an experience of a person's life. Like a speedrun. The themes - including never really launching into life, seeking to but never really connecting with others except post-facto, struggling to understand and metabolize losses, breaching out of the self - all resonated with me so that helped.
I watched a trailer that seemed to pitch it as an absurd comedy, which on reflection is an extremely weird approach.
The themes made sense to me, I just had no desire to endure the repeated misery and alienation of it. I mean, it's definitely art, I simply find it very ugly. It can be ugly on purpose all it likes, I still find it repulsive.
So you didn't even finish the movie? Or did I misread
I watched the trailer before watching the film.
I was referring to the part about having no desire to continue
I've sat through a lot of things that I didn't enjoy in my life!
In this case it was my optimistic nature hoping that eventually there would be something I felt was worthwhile. Alas, no, it was just a post-modern miseryfest, from my perspective.
I only saw this movie once but it still sticks with me. It was such a weird experience that simultaneously hit super hard and was also empty, vapid nothing.
That sounds a lot like my experience. It's memorable but felt like it had nothing to say.
I've got very little time for Charlie Kaufman. I quite liked Eternal Sunshine, but I generally find his stuff pretentious and get a vibe of smugness. That might be unfair -- I guess I'm just not the target audience.
I think his films are just very specific in taste. If you fall into his specific target demographoc the movie is amazing. But it can also depend on the day or it depends strongly on things one has heard about it beforehand. When I first watched Eternal Sunshine I was incredibly awake. There were so many things and strange details that didn't make sense that my brain was working hard to make sense of it. Later everything clicked and fell into place in an awesome way. I absolutely loved it.
But I know so many people who didn't like it one bit.
His other movies are also that way. My other favourite: Adaptation. I didn't like the Netflix one. Or didn't understand it or didn't care. Don't know.
Adaptation is great imo
Yeah I can always complain about something specific. I think this one was mentioned as "must see cult classic", so I watched it a bit but just couldn't go through. Something about large factory halls filled with people?
It's post modern, something The Simpsons summed up as "weird for the sake of weird". It's a smidge more complex than that but all I can say it left me with was a deep-seated annoyance at its pretentious existence.