Enormously frustrating 2008 film from Charles Kaufman, who both wrote and directed this one. It stars Philip Seymour Hoffman as Caden Cotard, a sickly and hypochondriacal stage director whose life falls apart as his artist wife (Christine Keener) leaves him and takes his daughter away to a life of artistic fame and decadence in Berlin. Cotard, meanwhile wins a MacArthur Fellowship and sets out to create real theater by recreating his world. It takes decades and is, of course, never done The film is, by turns, very funny and very sad, very meaningful and very shallow, it is about life itself, but the self-indulgent part of the script allowed this, like Cotard’s play, to just keep going on way too long. He needs a real editor See this for the grand concept and attempt, but it is not satisfying in some important ways. It can be very muddle-headed. Wonderful acting by many fine pros including Diane Weitz, Christine Keener, and many more.