Tagline: There are millions of people in the world, and none of those people is an extra. They’re all leads in their own stories.
Translation: There is almost no way this movie is as normal as that makes it sound.
The Verdict: The trailer for Charlie Kaufman’s directorial debut wisely avoids trying to communicate too many details of its batshit crazy plot (basically, Philip Seymour Hoffman plays a theater director who creates a one-to-one, real-time stage model of his own life), going instead for a funny, Wes Anderson–type whimsical feel. And despite reoccurring shots of Hoffman in old-man makeup and lines like “death comes faster than you think,” it almost manages to convince us we’ll be able to cheerily enjoy the film and its awesome supporting cast (Catherine Keener, Samantha Morton, Michelle Williams). Until the end of the trailer, that is, when one of the actors in the stage re-creation pipes up with the bizarre “When are we gonna get an audience in here? It’s been seventeen years.” On second thought, this is probably going to make us cry.
