A bold beginning: Charlie Kaufman on the set of Synecdoche, New York

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Charlie Kaufman has, by his own admission, “had his time in the sun”. “And now,” says the Oscar-winning writer of Eternal Sunshine of the ­Spotless Mind and Being John Malkovich, “it’s time to destroy me. People get bored and want to kill you. It’s the way of the world.”

He sighs. By any standard, his directorial debut (­previous collaborations have been with Michel Gondry and Spike Jonze) could have gone better. Not the film itself – Synecdoche, New York, which he’s happy with, though he later admits he doesn’t really have any real perspective on it yet – but the reaction. Or, specifically, the fact that in America, it sank without trace.

“We couldn’t sell it [at Cannes] and when we finally did, they didn’t put money into marketing. Very few people knew it existed.” He sighs again. “Everyone’s looking for the next Little Miss Sunshine.”

Which perhaps is the other thing. Little Miss ­Sunshine, it ain’t. It stars Philip Seymour Hoffman as a dying theatre director who decides to turn his life into a ­giant, and on-going, theatre project. With reality twisting in on itself, it’s about missed chances, death, bodily functions, death, depression, and death. It’s surreal, requires multiple viewings, and is by far Kaufman’s most ambitious film to date. It’s just not, obviously, for everyone.

“I felt the ending of Eternal Sunshine worked, but I didn’t want to do that with this movie – I had final cut. I didn’t want to have any gimmicks where people go ‘oh, yeah, I get it’ and feel good. You can’t have that resolution – this is where we’re all heading. We don’t know and never will. But I don’t think it’s pessimistic. People say it made them feel less alone, which is exactly what I wanted. When I watch a movie that’s happy I feel ­alienated because it’s garbage or a lie, and I feel isolated or lonely. I just wanted to be as honest as I know.”

Kaufman, needless to say, does not like romcoms.

The reaction in the US was, as Kaufman witheringly says, “mixed – but mixed makes it sounds, like, meh, it’s okay”. And he’s right – because despite being flawed, it’s a work of brilliance – and anything but meh.

It has five-star reviews from Time Out and Empire, both perhaps overlooking its deficiencies in ­favour of its vaulting ambition.

“You know,” he says with wry bemusement, “people have said that like it’s a bad thing – it’s ambitious.”

He is at work on ­another script – “about how we have perceptions on things that are not remotely familiar to us” – and aims to direct.

That will depend on a lot of things, of course. Not least the general financial situation. Will it make doing his films – hard to categorise and therefore market – more difficult?

“Yeah, I think so. It’s going to be impossible in the near future. I don’t know how it’s going to happen.”

I suggest a move to TV. He started off in TV, after all – it’s more a writer’s medium than film – and an HBO show, for instance, would ­allow him to explore the ideas that feel too tightly packed into the 124 minutes of Synecdoche, New York.

“I am seriously considering it,” he says, mentioning that he’s had talks. “I would want my own show. I like the idea of ­telling something over time. It might be a fun challenge. The movie business has changed, and with the stuff I do, it would be an interesting place to go.”

You can’t help thinking cinema’s loss will be TV’s gain.