Synecdoche, New York

Charlie Kaufman's Synecdoche, New York, the writer's first feature as a director, is a brilliant work of metafiction. It's also confounding, disturbingly scatological, grindingly negative and morbid, self-indulgent, and at times almost impossible to watch without feeling an unpleasant sensation forming in the pit of one's stomach. Its brilliance and its tendency to irritate are not mutually