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“Synecdoche, New York,” Charlie Kaufman’s latest metastravaganza to hit screens not quite everywhere, reminds me of a short film I made in college. It was titled “Fear and Dust,” and it was a sepia-toned tale of death at its most melancholic. Sadly, like many student films, it was also a self-indulgent train wreck. “Synecdoche” isn’t an exact replica, of course--its failure is less absolute, presumably because greater quantities of money, ambition, and skill were poured into its construction, but it suffers from the same appetite for amateurish excess that evinces an ego without direction.

That’s because this time around, said ego has taken the director’s chair for the first time--an exciting concept for fans of Kaufman’s previous work. Sadly, his lack of experience is palpable throughout, particularly in his indecisiveness about which pieces to cut, which to trim, and which to keep. He cleaves desperately to countless layers of convoluted and repetitive neuroses, as if hoping that the film’s scope alone will impress viewers enough to make them forget the black hole where its emotional center should be.

Many aspects of “Synecdoche” are impressive, though. It certainly earns points for its inventive production design and its profusion of big ideas. The plot--which surrounds the ongoing mental disintegration of Caden, a hypochondriacal theatre director played by a permanently frowning Philip Seymour Hoffman--broaches a number of intriguing themes about love, disappointment, and life and death, but they’re always mired in a sea of oppressive gloom. These elements pad the film’s two-hour length (and make it feel closer to six), but, much like the play within the film that encompasses a mirror-image world, they’re only partially successful at making Kaufman’s numerous points feel anything more than overwrought and self-aware.

After sitting through the film, a hodgepodge of arresting moments linger; some are inspired (a female actor, playing Caden, orders him, playing her, to perform everyday tasks through an omnipresent earpiece) and others are disastrous (a tedious montage that ensues thereafter). As a result, “Synecdoche, New York” conveys a portrait of a preoccupied auteur more effectively than it conveys plot or themes. We watch as Kaufman gives in to his urges to do nothing but frame his onscreen foil through lenses of varying sizes, shapes and colors; through clear lenses and opaque ones; through lenses that chill like frost and those that smolder--a needlessly large and diverse number of them that don’t always show precisely what they mean to. What’s left is a bitter, joyless exploration of an artistic mind; a Russian nesting doll of a film that exudes condescension and insecurity, rigidity and conciliation, impenetrability and simplicity all at once. And though every layer serves a purpose within the narrative, too often they reek of desperation.

-Scott Miller