Anomalisa

I am a huge Charlie Kaufman fan, and was very excited to get the chance to see this film at the Denver Film Festival this week. However, this film was extremely disappointing. The plot was quite boring and the film really just seemed to be a character study of loneliness and mental health deterioration. It would have made a great short film, but it was entirely too long for such a low-quality plot. The ending left me extremely unsatisfied.

However, I did enjoy the animation, sound, and other technical aspects of the film. But I'd have to rate this 5 stars and place it next to down there next to Schenectady, New York as one of my least favorite Charlie Kaufman films. Apparently I prefer films he writes but does not direct. I'm ready for another Spike Jonze collaboration!

"Anomalisa" is in my opinion one of this year's most important films. The film centres on Michael Stone, a depressed customer service guru who struggles to connect with others, finally meeting someone he can truly connect with - a woman named Lisa.

Anyone familiar with Kaufman's work knows that he has a tendency to write incredibly deep and complex stories embedded with a plethora of themes. "Anomalisa" might just be the one exception (or anomaly) to that fact. The story is surprisingly simple; most of it takes place over the course of 24 hours. The messages behind it, fortunately, will still require multiple viewings and further analysis in order to be fully grasped. The final synthesis is elegantly woven to near perfection and is at times humorous and even thrilling. Running at only 90 minutes, the film never feels slow nor bloated. I believe "Anomalisa" is a good starting point for those just starting to get into Kaufman's filmography.

The stop-motion animation is some of the best that I have ever seen on the big screen. For a project that was funded on Kickstarter, I have to say that the quality of the animation is the equivalent to what you would see in an Aardman Animations or Laika production - if not better. There were certain shots that made me stop and really appreciate the efforts that the team went through just to make all of their characters' movements flow realistically. Kudos to them!

The reasons why I think "Anomalisa" is one of this year's most important films not only have to do with the way the film was financed and produced, but that it also opens up a dialogue on isolation and social disillusionment - they are usually seen as flaws inherent only within the individual, despite the fact that everyone plays some part in furthering it.

"Anomalisa" is a true work of art on many levels. It is a simple story that touches on a wide range of emotions, riddled with the complexities of our perceptions on relationships. Do not be surprised if this film makes you laugh more than cry. Do not be surprised if this film makes you cry more than laugh - for that is the true beauty of this anomaly of a film.

(RATING: ☆☆☆½ out of 5)

THIS FILM IS RECOMMENDED.

IN BRIEF: A serious treatise on loneliness that, while making some intriguing insights, does ramble on and on.

GRADE: B-

SYNOPSIS: On a business trip, a lonely man searches for love among the ruins of his ordinary life.

I begin this review with a quote from Immanuel Kant: "Happiness is not an ideal of reason, but of imagination". This sums up the film, Anomalisa very succinctly. The film is an imaginative journey into the mind of a sad man who has lost all reason, living in a world where everyone is uniformly the same, in voice and appearance.

Nominated for a 2015 Oscar for Best Animated Film (and finally receiving wider distribution nearly 4 months later), Charlie Kauffman's stop-motion film has an odd yet intoxicating allure. It is a character study of a lonely man content to live within his own illusions, with reality just outside his grasp.

David Thewlis voices the character of Michael Stone, a man unable to connect with others. Michael settles for his cloistered existence. His responsibilities to his family and his job ties him down. He is a successful author and keynote speaker, discussing self-help techniques to the masses without the ability to help himself in his private life. On a business trip, he meets various strangers (all voiced by Tom Noonan). A feeling of hopelessness overpowers him. But it isn't until he finally hears a different voice in the form of Lisa Hesselman (Jennifer Jason Leigh) that he finally awakens to life and all of its wondrous possibilities. He nicknames her Anomalisa (a cross between an anomaly and Lisa herself). Their encounter becomes the crux of the film as MIchael's sanity slowly becomes unhinged, in the most literal sense.

Writer / director Charlie Kauffman creates a dreamlike film that is visually captivating but leaves many questions unanswered. (Sharing directing credit is also Duke Johnson.) With its deep philosophical bent, Mr. Kauffman's screenplay allows for too much intellectualizing and grand- standing of the human condition, interfering with the beauty of his simple tale.

The film is beautifully staged with wonderful detailed sets by the production team of John Joyce and Huy Vu and a haunting score by the reliable Carter Burwell that adds to the melancholia. The film's initial premise is intriguing, like experiencing a profound lecture or reading a compelling essay or poem, yet the level of satisfaction will differ with each viewer. Does one like metaphysical debates about the importance of life, happiness, and the general state of the human condition? Is it time well spent or wasted on thought-provoking meaningless observations? Is the glass half-empty, half-full, or not really there at all? Was I caught in a freshman class of Philosophy 101? (As you might tell, my feelings were decidedly mixed.)

While I enjoyed the film's animation and the atmospheric toll on the characters, this wisp of a plot edged on monotony, even though the film dealt with some provocative concepts. Technically, the stop-motion aspects are quite effective and achieve a graceful elegance. (Midway, the film takes on a more surreal quality which I personally found more compelling before it reverses itself once again.) But the overall script needed more risks into a wider range of bizarre and weird images that are capable within this animated genre. Instead, Kauffman and Co. settle for a tame strangeness as it trips over in its own wordiness and drawn-out ramblings.

No doubt this film is a labor of love and, on that, it should be commended. Anomalisa is the type of film project that one can greatly admire, but love never became part of the equation for this reviewer. Like the character of Michael, I just could not connect emotionally. I remained an avid observer and outsider throughout this movie-going experience, with true happiness just out of my grasp as well.

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Every time I see a Charlie Kaufman film I'm reminded how fearless he is at examining the human condition and why I need to put a lot of time in between watching his movies.

In "Anomalisa," his Academy-Award nominated animated film, David Thewlis and especially Jennifer Jason Leigh do tremendous voice work as an emotionally ill minor celebrity and the shy, awkward woman with whom he enjoys a one-night stand while at a conference at which he is the speaker. The film is an examination of middle-aged male discontent and loneliness, a subject a younger version of me was always impatient with and which the 41-year-old version of me now finds hits uncomfortably close to home. Kaufman creates a sad character who has many unpleasant tendencies but isn't necessarily a completely unpleasant man, and allows us to see how this one night in the man's life and his approach to human relationships is a stand-in for his entire adult life and the driving force behind his depression.

As in his masterpiece, "Synecdoche, New York," Kaufman refuses to give in to the convention of happy, or at least hopeful, endings, and suggests that it is possible to live an entire life being utterly miserable if you don't possess the resources to do otherwise, a terrifying idea to anyone who has struggled with depression, anxiety, or even just prolonged bouts of general malaise. In so many Hollywood movies about unhappy people, the unhappy people just need the emotional connection to that one special person that shakes them out of their funk and changes everything around for them. One of the things I liked best about "Anomalisa" is its suggestion that, while those special people really do exist, happiness in any one person is something that has to come from inside and isn't going to be imposed on one by another. It isn't comfortable to think about the possibility of life being a long series of missed opportunities, but it feels honest.

Grade: A-

Caught this film at a last minute matinée at ArcLight Hollywood. It's a stop motion animated film about a British author, voiced by David Thewlis, coming to Cincinnati for one night for a conference and his time spent in a first class hotel.

At the beginning I was impatient with it, I thought it might be just a stop motion South Park episode, where all the voices are pretty much the same. Then when the character of Lisa came on the screen, it all changed for me. I got it, it clicked.

The film is so disarmingly simple in its beauty and elegance. The relationship between the two main characters really touches you. Plus I'd never thought I'd be moved by the singing of a particular well known 1980s pop song in the film.

The role of Lisa was a diamond in the rough character, a beautiful, flawed girl whose been wrongly ignored romantically and it just takes the right person to see how fantastic she really is. It made me think of the times I wished I'd had a Lisa in my life and the times I was fortunate enough to have one. Lisa was voiced by Jennifer Jason Leigh in a performance that fooled me, I was so drawn into the character I had no idea it was her, I only saw Lisa as Lisa.

While not a perfect film, it won me over and works on many levels, the filmmakers, Charlie Kaufman and Duke Johnson, leave it largely up for the viewer to decide what the film is about. Is the lead character insane? Is he in Limbo, his own private Hell, is everyone a robot, wearing masks literally? Does he see oil painting beauty in someone one day and the next sees only cracks and flaws? Who can say?

One thing though, voice actor Tom Noonan, albeit talented, should never sing again, ever. Never again, Dollarhyde, never again.

Anomalisa, or as I call it, A Mona Lisa, is the same as the iconic painting that is its namesake, kind of a thing of flawed beauty.