The story follows Caden Cotard (Hoffman), a successful theatre director living married with one daughter in Schenectady, New York. The title of this film a twist on the name of the place meaning a piece of what is ultimately revealed. Upon a rather thunderous and bloody attack from a loose tap in the bathroom sink we begin to see cracks in his married life. Perhaps not from his perspective but from his wife Adele's, played by Catherine Keener. She is emotionally and physically drained, casting dark narrowed eyes upon Caden at every momentary shot. We, as an audience, piece together her unhappiness and her want to be a successful artist while surrounded by Caden's boredom of repeated successes and his increasing number of ailments.
She eventually leaves him with their young daughter Olive, an inquisitive sprog curious about her life's own new wonders like pipes and psychosis. This is a deep sudden contrast to her life's new and tattooed experiences revealed later on and it's frightening to see such an immense change when Caden cannot grasp what he so desperately wants. This is the last we see of Adele, her presence and successes only made clear in international magazine articles and through notes in her apartment. More importantly, Caden later finds her gallery of microscopic painting, the piece of the greater puzzle.
Upon his family's departure Caden is encumbered with a MacArthur Fellowship allowing him financial free reign to pursue his life's work, a play depicting the truth. It's here that the film takes a mind-boggling turn, thousands of actors are hired to live out a life not their's, sets are erected and eventually made into full living spaces inside a massive warehouse. These latter sights are incredible to witness, their visual integrity awe-inspiring upon the glimpse of airships and the blinking lights of a passing airplane. The sense of scale is increasingly ambiguous and nothing is as it seems. Caden's life is plagued by the fruitless search of his daughter and the need to recreate this life lost with two very available young women throughout his life. Samantha Morton and Michelle Williams give touching turns as the increasingly unhappy loves of Caden's life. With memorable moments such as Samantha's Hazel living in a house that's always on fire and Michelle's Claire enraging that 'everyone has tattoos' when revealing a back-sized Devil on her skin.
Humourously bleak in some instances and cripplingly sad in others, this is a film about self-indulgence, a point made clear when Caden's own double jumps from a roof to which Caden declares to the dead body that he did not jump because someone was there to stop him. The audienceless play becomes ridiculous in scale and scope, with doubles employed to portray actors living out not-lives. These actors then falling in love with their real-life cross-counterparts makes for entertaining viewing. It's here that is delivers spectacularly surreal humour: the warehouse-inside-a-warehouse-inside-a-warehouse, the book that ceases to give advice when the author's sexual advances are not met, the angry dying daughter who will only give forgiveness upon her ancient father's admittance of a non-existent homosexual relationship despite being one herself.
The film's score is beautiful, one that plucks at the heartstrings. Little Person by John Brion frames beautiful scenes from a jazz bar to Caden's wanderings and wonderings through his real life and his eventual fictional demise. The film's second turn is upon the arrival of Dianne Wiest who then fills in the shoes as director to give Caden a much-needed rest now that he has outlived his daughter and his ex-wife. It's here we fully note the selfishness of his exploits, that his lovers' own shared lover overr the course of his lifetime is perpetually haunted by Caden, the countless deaths and starvation outside as thousands declare freedom. The music hauntingly builds in this final act, with what sounds like eerie life support blips and beeps dizzying over a pianist's rendition of Little Person. This reminded me of Vangelis' Memories Of Green from Blade Runner.
Upon its ending, I felt a warm sadness. I felt like I was ready to die, that this human journey was ultimately a fruitless endeavour, that 'we spend more time dead, than we do alive', that we are 'all the same thing'. To quote Bill Hicks, 'we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively'. That in the end it doesn't matter how Kaden ends the play or even projects it to the audience that are forever waiting outside the warehouse for its opening.
We, as an audience, want Caden to know what he wants to do ultimately, a play of truth with a thousand terrible titles, but we also see the tired activity of the hundreds, maybe thousands, of people living around him. They too, are a life lived and Caden is both selfless and selfish. Running out of time as each of his functions grind to a halt or slowly disconnect themselves. This unnatural process of decay is housed in an uncertain progression of time. There are no hints save for his confusion at his daughter's current age, from four to eleven in the space of minutes, and the sagginess of Samantha Morton's face. Most would suggest that this is a self-indulgent escapade by Kaufman. I think those people are missing the point that it is completely that, and one that tells you how fruitless and disappointing life can be when death is ultimately inevitable.
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