With a gripping lead performance from Tom Mercier and some truly of-the-moment discussions, ‘Synonyms’ is a one-of-a-kind drama at the New York Film Festival
Synonyms opens in disorientation. We see a careening, handheld look to the streets of Paris as we follow Yoav as he finds his way into the city after arriving from Israel, and the audience is made to feel just as off-kilter as he is. The camera captures the street, passers-by, the river, the buildings and more. But it flits from one thing to another, and you are taken through it all on Yoav’s point of view. This shot stupendously opens a film that has to be seen to be comprehended.
Yoav (newcomer Tom Mercier in a marvelous performance) finds himself intertwined with the lives of two well-off young French people named Emile and Caroline (Quentin Dolmaire and Louise Chevillotte). From there he begins to find his way in a city that doesn’t really understand him as he escapes a country he refuses to understand any further. Yoav’s life unfolds in only the smallest details, but a clear lack of faith in the mission of the Israeli people is what makes him try to start over in a country, one where he isn’t forced to worship his nation. And what he finds is ties to home that cannot be broken, and new ties forming that are hard to maintain.
Filmmaker Nadav Lapid’s follow-up to 2014’s The Kindergarten Teacher (remade last year with Maggie Gyllenhaal) is incredibly smart at showing how dedication and faith can go too far. The Kindergarten Teacher’s faith is put into a young student’s incredible intelligence, but Synonyms shoots for a larger target of faith in a home. For Yoav, that home has sent him to war and killed his friends, but for Emile and Caroline home is something that is cozy and not worth thinking too much about.
Quentin Dolmaire (Emile), Tom Mercier (Yoav), and Louise Chevillotte (Caroline) in Synonyms
The relationship between the French couple and the Israeli ex-pat begins almost like a Dickensian parable and ends up as a tense display of love and pain. The language barrier and the inherent charm of Yoav in France make him almost a commodity, but even that wears off as Yoav starts to find his own ways to navigate this new world. Crime, dancing, drinking, sex, sacrifice and more become games to him, and are shown as escapes from the monotony of a world on the edge.
Lapid’s darkly comedic instincts play out in Yoav’s strange path through life, from witnessing (and shadow boxing) as a bare-knuckle brawl happens before his eyes to dance at a party with teenagers to “Pump Up the Jam,” there is a humor that chases Yoav. But from that and anything else that could be too “real” for him, Yoav is always on the run. Yoav possesses cowardice and hatred, keeping him from ever really giving himself up to his new or old homes.
The Poster for Synonyms
By the end of the film, Lapid has hammered his message into you. Nationalism and extremism are everywhere. The flag might be different, but it carries the same meaning. But more than that, Yoav isn’t too different from the people he pities and looks down on in France. Emile’s father gives him money and support, and Emile gives Yoav the same. Everything is copy, at the end of the day. It’s just sometimes in slightly different spellings.
Synonyms will debut in theaters on October 25th. It is a Kino Lorber release.
