Synonyms (2019)

I can't even understand how people were convinced to participate in the making of such a useless project . Stay away.

Fmovies: Great film that deals with the issue of identity in a most original and intriguing way. As an Israeli living abroad, I got connected to the film on a personal level. I saw a dozen or so film this year at the Berlinale, and this one was by far the most deserving of the Golden Bear. I highly recommend it.

Pretentious and boring. The movie is a series of scenes that hardly make any sense, with a character that denies its mother tongue language so decides to speak only French - even with his family - in dialogs that have no sense whatsoever. Scenes are slow, dialogs make no sense, and I have no idea what did the director want from the audience. Kind of pretentious movies that European foundations love to fund and should be restricted to pretentious ceremonies. waste of time and money.

Synonyms fmovies. This film makes zero sense. This guy came from Israel, speaks only high French, talks dirty about Israel in an illogical way, all the French are amazing, he lives without money, does nothing, has no thoughts and no feelings. Still he works at the embassy of his country he hates but does nothing. All the other security people are faceless horrible people who only try to hit people. So pretentious, so useless and has no point whatsoever, except for putting Israel's image bad (with lies!!) - shockingly bad, boring. Just save your time & money and don't see this horrible film.

I'm all about alternative, european crap. Hell that is why I watch almost everything I can get to at festivals. This has to be one of the worst movies I've watched in my life. Storyline, structure, flow, script everything is atrocious.

Synonyms seems to be yet another polarizing film among fans, I can understand the other side very well. When I first saw this film at the Berlin International Film Festival I didn't know what to think. I loved all of the performances and thought the film had great dialogue. What baffled me though were scenes that didn't quite make sense in the full context of the narrative. I had a similar reaction with I Was At Home But. But the more I thought about Synonyms I quickly came to the conclusion that I saw something special that I had to see again. I also predicted that the film would fair very well amongst the Jury (which it did as it won the Golden Bear). The story revolves around a young Israeli immigrant, Yoav. He flees his old home of Israel to live in Paris where he meets the young supposed couple Emile and Caroline and befriends them. Yoav feels a bit like Tom Hanks in Forrest Gump or Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man where he seems like a fish out of water in most situations within the film. These moments often lead to some strange and hilarious moments within the film. The chemistry these young actors have with one another is inevitably sweet and draws the audience in. The main actor Tom Mericier is a contender for my favorite performance of 2019. His likeable, yet strange character creates a perfect balance of relatability and intrigue. The audience wants to learn who he is and what shaped him to become such a strange man, in his oversized yellow trench coat. This might be a reason why viewers were turned off by this as many questions are never directly answered. The writing and directing leave subtle hints and who Yoav is but most of the time the character is a complete alien to everyone. Reasons for his distaste for Israel are called into question which challenges the viewer, if we critique aspects of our own culture, will we be viewed just like we view Yoav? Can we assimilate with another culture or will we be left out in the dark. This tragic yet funny tale is a great study on culture and integration, a concept that might not be the most original. But the original execution involving three great central performances, as well as a witty screenplay with interesting characters definitely makes this the most interesting experience I've had at the Berlin International Film Festival.