Like most great works of art, Charlie Kaufman's brilliant film Synecdoche, NY stimulates contemplation on some of life's deepest questions. What does it mean to be in the world? What is the meaning of life? What is the meaning of death? The film does not answer these questions. Indeed, director Charlie Kaufman shares the postmodern view that Truth and Reality (i.e., answers) as objective ideals outside of everyday life, language, and individual perspective do not even exist. The film adheres to the idea that meaning and being are deferred and that meaning and being fully present are denied. The deferral of meaning begins before you even see the film. The title chosen by Charlie Kaufman, Synecdoche, is a word that draws attention to the fact that in language meaning is constantly postponed. “Synecdoche: a figure of speech in which a part is used for the whole (as a sailor's hand), the whole for a part (such as the law for the police officer), the specific for the general (such as cutthroat for the murderer), the general for the specific (such as thief for pickpocket), or the material for the thing that comes from it (like sword steel)." (Webster's, 1) In addition to language's unlimited deferral of meaning, synecdoche adds another layer of fragmentation with its representational purpose as a signifier of a signifier of a meaning At the beginning of the film, the fragmentation of reality continues with the destruction of linear time. The opening scene is a domestic scene, the Cotard family in Schenectady, New York, begins their day . However, the viewer quickly realizes that something is wrong. Beneath the delicate exchanges of a family over breakfast, it becomes clear that time is not what... middle of paper... and to be determined, with the actors flowing mercurially from one character to the next. The warehouse located within a set within a set, practically infinitely, is a sanctuary of the infinite deferral of being. Caiden completely fails to expose a final meaning through his work (because there are no final meanings to show). However, without reference to any absolutes, Caiden is at peace when he finally turns to Hazel. The day they spent together was the only one where Caiden seemed happy. Another example of this attempt to reach out to others is (in a delightful slice of identity deferral) Caiden playing Millicent Weems playing Ellen, when he/she addresses his/her mother in the final scene. So in the end, in Synecdoche, NY meaning and being are not about a hidden objective reality (which po-mo denies). Being is about “mitsein” – “being with/towards” others.