Synecdoche, New York 2008

Theater director Caden Cotard finds his world disintegrating around him. Struggling with various physical ailments, he becomes increasingly isolated from his artist wife, Adele. Things take a turn for the worse when Adele decides to leave him for a new beginning in Berlin, taking their four-year-old daughter, Olive, along with her.

Following the success of his production of Death of a Salesman, Caden is unexpectedly awarded a MacArthur Fellowship, providing him the financial freedom to delve into his artistic endeavors. He resolves to create a profoundly honest and brutal artistic piece, channeling his entire essence into it. He assembles an ensemble cast in a vast warehouse situated in Manhattan’s Theater District, where he orchestrates a tribute to the ordinary. He assigns the cast to live out their constructed lives as the mock-up within the warehouse increasingly reflects the bustling city outside. Amidst this chaos, Caden grapples with his personal struggles. The weight of realization hits him as he learns that Adele has become a renowned painter in Berlin, while Olive is growing up under the dubious care of Adele’s friend, Maria.

After an unsuccessful romantic encounter with Hazel, the box office attendant, Caden marries Claire, an actress from his cast, with whom he has a daughter. However, their relationship soon crumbles, leading Caden to maintain an awkward bond with Hazel, who is now married with children and serving as his assistant. Meanwhile, an unidentified ailment begins to nag at him, gradually shutting down his autonomic nervous system.

As time slips away, the warehouse becomes a sanctuary, detached from the decay ravaging the outside world. Caden immerses himself further into his magnum opus, blending the lines between reality and the performance by incorporating doppelgängers into the production. Notably, Sammy Barnathan, an actor with an unsettling obsession with Caden, is cast to play him in the play, while a lookalike fills Sammy’s original role. Sammy’s interest in Hazel rekindles her relationship with Caden, prompting Sammy to take a tragic turn and ultimately end his own life. Just as Caden and Hazel find solace in each other, tragedy strikes again when Hazel succumbs to smoke inhalation in her perpetually burning house.

As he pushes the boundaries of both his personal and artistic relationships, Caden allows an actress to take over his directing role while he adopts her former position as Ellen, Adele’s caretaker. He spends his days in a replica of Adele’s apartment under the new director’s guidance, as unexplained disasters unfold in the warehouse, leaving devastation and casualties in their wake. Eventually, he readies himself for death, resting his head on the shoulder of an actress who once played Ellen’s mother, the seemingly last living soul in the warehouse. As this poignant scene fades to gray, Caden begins to share his newfound vision for the play, only to be interrupted by the director’s final cue in his ear:

“Die.”