In his review in the "Chicago Sun-Times", Roger Ebert said, "I watched it the first time and knew it was a great film [...] the subject of 'Synecdoche, New York' is nothing less than human life and how it works. Using a neurotic theater director from upstate New York, it encompasses every life and how it copes and fails. Think about it a little and, my god, it's about you. "Whoever" you are." In 2009 Ebert wrote that the movie was the best of the decade. Manohla Dargis of the "New York Times" said, "To say that is one of the best films of the year or even one closest to my heart is such a pathetic response to its soaring ambition that I might as well pack it in right now ... Despite its slippery way with time and space and narrative and Mr. Kaufman’s controlled grasp of the medium, "Synecdoche, New York" is as much a cry from the heart as it is an assertion of creative consciousness. It’s extravagantly conceptual but also tethered to the here and now." In the "Los Angeles Times", Carina Chocano called the film "wildly ambitious ... sprawling, awe-inspiring, heartbreaking, frustrating, hard-to-follow and achingly, achingly sad."