Charlie Kaufman can't tell jokes. Well, so what, you might say; according to some, nor could Shakespeare, and what of that? But then, Shakespeare never wrote a play consisting of nothing but jokes.
Of course, Kaufman the writer has been badly let down by Kaufman the director (although no more or less badly than he was let down by Spike Jonze or Michel Gondry, than whom he is at least no less talented) – so it's hard to say where exactly the fault lies; but while watching this film one comes to the slow and dazed realisation that what it's attempting is humour.
For example: Caden (Philip Seymour Hoffman) is raging about his daughter's getting a tattoo at an early age. Claire (Michelle Williams) takes off her shirt to reveal that her back is entirely covered by a bright red tattoo of Satan, which she says she got at the same age. Caden, who has been sleeping with Claire for several years: "Well, I've never seen THAT before." It's a joke right out of "The Simpsons"; one can imagine Homer Simpson delivering the same line. The difference is that in "The Simpsons" the line would have been funny, and we wouldn't have blinked, sat in puzzlement through whatever happened next (one ceases to care after a while) and perhaps even made it through the closing credits and out into the street before realising that this line was supposed to be funny. Kaufman presents jokes to us the way a cat might present a dead bird, then stalks off to bask in his own cleverness while we're struggling to work out what our reaction is meant to be.
Not one of Kaufman's jokes, conceits, or visual touches, not the one-liner about the tattoo, not the unexplained Zeppelin that weaves its way through the scale-model New York tenements, not the miniature portraits you need magnifying glasses to see, not the laboured basic premise of the film, has any impact or life. Anyone can come up with these ideas: philosophy postgrad students are already able to generate thought experiments of this kind by the dozen, and often tell them better. And, alas, the film is like conceptual art. Once I tell you what it's about you might as well not bother to watch it. You've already got the gag. And it's not funny.
Of course, Kaufman the writer has been badly let down by Kaufman the director (although no more or less badly than he was let down by Spike Jonze or Michel Gondry, than whom he is at least no less talented) – so it's hard to say where exactly the fault lies; but while watching this film one comes to the slow and dazed realisation that what it's attempting is humour.
For example: Caden (Philip Seymour Hoffman) is raging about his daughter's getting a tattoo at an early age. Claire (Michelle Williams) takes off her shirt to reveal that her back is entirely covered by a bright red tattoo of Satan, which she says she got at the same age. Caden, who has been sleeping with Claire for several years: "Well, I've never seen THAT before." It's a joke right out of "The Simpsons"; one can imagine Homer Simpson delivering the same line. The difference is that in "The Simpsons" the line would have been funny, and we wouldn't have blinked, sat in puzzlement through whatever happened next (one ceases to care after a while) and perhaps even made it through the closing credits and out into the street before realising that this line was supposed to be funny. Kaufman presents jokes to us the way a cat might present a dead bird, then stalks off to bask in his own cleverness while we're struggling to work out what our reaction is meant to be.
Not one of Kaufman's jokes, conceits, or visual touches, not the one-liner about the tattoo, not the unexplained Zeppelin that weaves its way through the scale-model New York tenements, not the miniature portraits you need magnifying glasses to see, not the laboured basic premise of the film, has any impact or life. Anyone can come up with these ideas: philosophy postgrad students are already able to generate thought experiments of this kind by the dozen, and often tell them better. And, alas, the film is like conceptual art. Once I tell you what it's about you might as well not bother to watch it. You've already got the gag. And it's not funny.