Movie Review: Synonyms

Synonyms *** ½ / *****

Directed by: Nadav Lapid.

Written by: Nadav Lapid & Haim Lapid.

Starring: Tom Mercier (Yoav), Quentin Dolmaire (Emile), Louise Chevillotte (Caroline), Uria Hayik (Yaron), Olivier Loustau (Michel), Yehuda Almagor (Yoav's Father), Gaya Von Schwarze (Tamar), Gal Amitai (Eyal), Idan Ashkenazi (Roey), Dolev Ohana (Amit), Erwan Ribard (Tolga), Yawen Ribard (Tolga's Son), Iman Amara-Korba (Yasmina), Christophe Paou (Raphaël). 

 

One of the funniest lines – repeated a few times – in Bong Joon-ho’s Oscar winning Parasite is “It’s so metaphorical” – and I couldn’t help but think of it when watching Nadav Lapid’s Synonyms, which is nothing if not metaphorical. That’s not entirely a good or bad thing here – but it’s certainly something I couldn’t help but think, because seemingly every scene, every interaction and line, is steeped in metaphors and symbolism in ways that sometimes work, and sometimes don’t. This is a film about a young Israeli man, who moves to France because he has decided he hates his home country and their militarism – his mandatory army service didn’t go well. But he also realizes, during the course of the movie, that he isn’t French either – and even if he were, it isn’t that their hands are clean of those same problems either.

 

The movie deliberately begins in ends with scenes that echo each other. In the opening, Yoav arrives in Paris, and at an apartment he is apparently renting for the night, lets himself in, takes a bath, and when he gets out, realizes that someone has broken in, and stolen all his stuff – so he is quite literally naked and alone. He will eventually be rescued in a way by Emile (Quentin Dolmaire) and Caroline (Louise Chevillotte) – a kind of quintessential young, beautiful, privileged French couple. Their first interaction lets you know that Yoav will eventually fuck at least one of them. Emile gives him clothes and money – and Yoav heads back out into Paris, to his new apartment – but will be drawn back, time and again, to Emile and Caroline. You may well be reminded of the love triangle in Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Dreamers here – although this film doesn’t go quite that dark, and Bertolucci’s film handled it better – mainly because I don’t think Caroline here has much depth – she is basically a caricature of the beautiful young French woman. The movie ends again at an apartment door – this one literally shut, forever, no matter what Yoav tries.

 

From there, the film kind of lashes out in all different directions. It is episodic in many ways – and writer/director Nadav Lapid will sometimes spend a lot of time on a particular subplot, and then just abandon it when it’s run its course (Yoav’s work at the Israeli embassy for instance, and his brief friendship with another Israeli young man, whose idea of his country is vastly different). The one constant in the film is Yoav himself – played in quite literal balls out performance by newcomer Tom Mercier, who isn’t afraid of, well, anything. He lashes out in righteous, but impotent, anger throughout the movie. He doesn’t really know what he wants – just that at the moment anyway, he’s pissed at where he comes from. The character is said to be based on Lapid himself as a young man – and you can certainly see elements of many of the characters from Phillip Roth novels over the years. You feel sorry for him – at least at first – although as the movie progresses he reveals more disturbing aspects of himself, more toxic masculinity. I’m sure Yoav would love Todd Phillips’ Joker.

 

I was constantly fascinated by Synonyms, without every quite loving it. It doesn’t quite have the satisfying ambiguity of Lapid’s last film, The Kindergarten Teacher (remade, quite well, a couple years ago with Maggie Gyllenahaal – although the original is better). The film tries to have it both ways – it wants to seem to be loose and ragged, like its main character, but everything in it feels so calculated to be read as deep. It is very metaphorical – but for the most part in movies, films that truly work like that, make you forget about as you watch. You never do with Synonyms.