Synecdoche was Charlie Kaufman's directorial debut and depicts the bleak demise of theatre director Caden Cotard, whose life unravels after his wife leaves him and takes with her their daughter, Olive. Overall, this film takes the form of a "play within a play," and often refers to life itself as a play. In such meta-drama, each person plays the lead in his or her own story.
Cotard is an interesting character, who devotes himself to depicting extreme realism in his play, becoming obsessed with getting it right. Ultimately, the film shows the downside to perfectionism, as Caden never feels ready to present the play to an audience, and ultimately dies before he is able to.
Caden is largely a bleak protagonist, as his life falls apart before his eyes. It seems that he is unable to deal with life directly, instead confronting his problems through his play and putting a distance between himself and reality, whilst also blurring the lines between reality and fiction. As we see, Caden's physical disease that causes him relentless suffering represents the spiritual and psychological disease he is also suffering from, whereby he is unable to take control over his own life.
