Synecdoche, New York

Another brain-scrambler from Charlie Kaufman- and the film Fellini might have made if he'd been a cerebral, nihilistic New Yorker instead of an Italian hedonist- or- in other words a kind of miserabilist version of 81/2. A valetudinarian theatre director gets given the money to realise the theatrical masterwork of his dreams- and sets about dramatising his own very dull life on a monumental scale. After a while art and reality become inextricably intertwined. Freaky idea, brilliantly realised- with some good jokes- but utterly joyless. Philip Seymour Hoffman is in default mode as the shuffling shlub of a hero- and you want to clap him on the back and tell him to go eat some spaghetti, drink some vino rosso, go for a walk on the beach...