Film

Synonyms

Name: Synonyms
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Released: 2019
Cast: Tom Mercier, Quentin Dolmaire, Louise Chevillotte, Uria Hayik, Olivier Loustau

Drama

A young Israeli man flees to Paris determined to erase his identity and become French, armed with a dictionary and desperate reinvention. Egoyan's film is a smart, unsettling comedy about belonging, displacement, and the violence of self-erasure. It's bracingly funny and deeply melancholic by turns—for viewers drawn to character studies that refuse easy answers.

TMDb rating

2.9

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you enjoy restless, provocative films where language itself becomes a battleground, and you don't mind a protagonist who is hard to like, with a sharp, prickly comic streak running through the anger.

Skip it if you want a story that unfolds at a comfortable pace, since its loud, abrasive energy and disorienting moods can wear thin over two hours.

What it asks of you: Expect a long, restless stretch of shouting, sudden silences and bright stabs of humour, with the attention pulled hard in every direction for its full two hours.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

The Death of Mr. Lazarescu2005

A Romanian comedy-drama following a man's nightmarish hospital odyssey, blending tragedy and dark humour with documentary precision. Same moral gravity, same refusal to sentimentalize.

But Extraordinarily bleak and lengthy. It's a real endurance test without conventional catharsis.

Cameraperson2016

Kirsten Johnson's essay on bearing witness—fragments of footage from war zones and personal life, assembled without commentary. A meditation on presence, observation, and what we owe the world.

But Radically plotless and formally experimental. Some will find it too abstract or emotionally withholding.

Weekend2011

Andrew Haigh's intimate two-hander about a brief encounter between two men in Nottingham, exploring identity, class, and vulnerability. Naturalistic where Synonyms is performed; same emotional honesty.

But Minimal story; much of it is dialogue and quiet. Some find intimate indie dramas claustrophobic or slow.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Synonyms

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Hiroshima Mon Amour1959

Both films use broken repetition, linguistic play, and intimate dialogue to examine identity and what remains when we try to become someone else. Both understand that forgetting the past is impossible.

Resnais and Duras' poetic two-character film about memory, forgetting, and the impossibility of truly knowing another person. Like Synonyms, it treats language as inadequate to experience—but here, it mourns that gap rather than celebrates escape.

But Formally experimental and theoretically dense. Audiences without patience for French New Wave abstraction and repetition will find it glacial and opaque.

The Turin Horse2011

Béla Tarr's apocalyptic repetition-poem, featuring an old man and woman at civilization's end. Hypnotic, funny in its bleakness, and obsessed with language and ritual like Synonyms is.

But Brutally austere in black-and-white. Long, slow, deliberately punishing. Not for viewers seeking plot momentum.

Stalker1979

Tarkovsky's philosophical sci-fi about desire and selfhood, moving through a mysterious zone. Shares Synonyms' meditative questioning of identity and what we truly seek.

But Nearly three hours of contemplative pacing. Some will find it impenetrably slow; others will struggle with its abstraction.

Cold Souls2009

Sophie Coppola's surrealist comedy about a man who extracts his soul and stores it. A comic-fantastical take on identity-erasure and the self, with the same wry intelligence.

But Precious and whimsical; some find Coppola's sensibility cloying. The concept overtakes character for many viewers.

A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence2014

Roy Andersson's deadpan Swedish comedy-horror, a series of vignettes about human suffering and absurdity. Similar sensibility: funny, disquieting, ambivalent about meaning.

But Plotless, deadpan, sometimes gratuitously bleak. Its rigorous formalism frustrates viewers wanting narrative momentum.

A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence poster

Flux Gourmet2022

Jon Waters' chaotic comedy about sonic culinary artists and bodily control. Playful and grotesque; shares Synonyms' interest in performance, authenticity, and bodies as language.

But Deliberately gross and anarchic. Its camp humor and bodily comedy will alienate anyone seeking restraint or conventional taste.

Cléo from 5 to 71962

Both are Paris-set philosophical comedies about identity in flux, shot through with humor. Both trust observation and performance over narrative momentum.

Varda's real-time Paris film following a woman through ninety minutes of uncertainty and self-discovery. The closest mainstream film to Synonyms' blend of philosophical comedy, Parisian setting, and fluid selfhood.

But Purely observational; very little happens. Its meditative pacing and existential preoccupations bore viewers seeking plot or conventional drama.

Crimes and Misdemeanors1989

Both use fast, nervous comedy to ask whether a man can successfully reinvent himself and escape his past. Both suggest the answer is more complicated and sadder than fantasy allows.

Allen's darkest film: two parallel stories about self-deception, morality, and flight from consequence. Where Synonyms uses comedy to excavate identity-crisis, this uses it to interrogate whether ethics survive prosperity.

But Allen's voiceover and structure feel dated now; his sexual politics are murky. Some viewers find his self-regarding authorial voice insufferable.